US President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama was keenly aware the world was transfixed on the 2008 elections as he spoke today in a humble but resolute tone about his foreign policy’s broad strokes.

He clearly knows the free world looks to him to give flesh to America’s continuing role as policeman of the world and foremost exponent of democracy, human rights, and free enterprise.

It does not take too much reading between the lines to understand that the 47-year-old 44th president of America, its historic first black chief executive, will shun dealing with unpopular, corrupt, and authoritarian regimes.

And fully focused on the great task the lies ahead, Mr. Obama was very selective in taking the hundreds of congratulary phone calls from leaders around the world today.

Americans are electing a new president in the next 72 hours.

Tens of thousands of those going to the polls are Filipino-Americans, immigrants, sons and daughters of immigrants and those who grew up or were born in the Philippines but have since obtained US citizenships.

All are holding in their hands or are within sight of the American dream: the good life of material self-sufficiency, sufficiency enough to look after the life of the loved ones they left behind, those in the next generation waiting for their own chance to leave the Philippines and live a life of “peace and contentment in the “mainland.”

Put simply, the phrase “it’s the economy, dummy” is the deciding factor for Americans who may vote the Republicans out of the White House hoping to bring back the good economic times of the Clinton years minus the Clintons.

The spotlight is on the fact that today the “mainland” is in the throes of its worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

So Filipino-Americans (or American-Filipinos) will be making a choice that will impact on their own lives and that of their kin living in poverty and socio-political uncertainty in the Philippines.

Will they and their far away motherland benefit from the election of the leading wannabee, the nominee of the Democratic Party who has captured the American imagination with his battle cry “Change we can believe in” or will the Republican candidate score an upset  despite being weighed down by the “failed” economic policies of George W. Bush.

The surveys say more voters believe Barack Obama is the “obvious” choice.

Barack they say “can nurse the US economy back to good health and enable it make it recover from the ’stroke’ it suffered because of the unmitigated greed of Wall Street’s crooks in suits

But many alsb elieve with a passion that the putative first-ever black American president, despite his ‘Kennedyesque” projection, has simplified the equation too much and that his lack of experience in foreign policy will be bad for America and rest of the Free World.

Indeed many are asking whose finger will be at the nuke button in the White House if a global security crisis erupts given the still volatile situations in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan plus the other potential flashpoints that would ‘force’ the “world’s policeman” to play a role bigger than the one it is already playing

This may be just a bogey for some but a valid issue of concern for the Philippines given the prominent implementation here of the US military strategy of “forward deployment of forces” and the participation of US Special Forces in the continuing local version of the war on terror with the known links of extremist Moro bandits to the Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya.

So yes, as America votes there is a lot at stake for Filipinos beyond the state of the US economy.

WE ALL MUST WATCH AND WAIT.

UPDATE:

With some 24 hours before the polls open:

Gallup’s daily tracking survey has Obama gaining momentum and leading 52 percent to 42 percent.

A Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll puts the figure at 53 percent for Obama and 44 percent for McCain.

A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby tracking poll released on Sunday shows Obama’s lead firming up to 6 points—50 to 44 percent—among likely voters.

An Associated Press-Yahoo News national poll of likely voters has the first-term Illinois senator ahead, 51 to 43, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.