Late last year I went to Iowa to see first hand how the presidential primary on the Democratic side was shaping up.

On November 10, 2007 in Des Moines, I heard the "buzz" candidate Senator Barack Obama give his speech to the Jefferson/Jackson Dinner, the major Democratic Party fundraising event in the state.

I had actually seen the young Illinois senator earlier that day at another event and had not been very impressed.

He seemed to lack the electric presence so many people had attributed it to him. As a Hillary Clinton supporter I was not unduly worried about his threat to her.

That night changed everything, however, as Obama unleashed a stem winder of a speech that had everyone, including many Clinton supporters, standing and applauding.

He was everything he had not been earlier in the day, impassioned, direct, hitting hard on the Republicans' mismanagement of the country.

For the first time I began to doubt Clinton's campaign. Its members were overwhelmingly older, many of them veterans from her husband's administration.

As I looked around the Iowa arena that night I saw thousands of young pro-Obama faces, all intensely committed to the African American from neighboring Illinois.

The unease in the Clinton camp afterwards was palpable.

Even though she was still the overwhelming favorite to win, something fundamental changed that night. The notion of an African American senator with only two years in the Senate winning the presidency suddenly didn't seem so outlandish after all.

I went away from Iowa with much to chew on. This skinny black guy with the weird name was threatening to capsize the stars and create a moment in history Americans would never forget.

All through the tough primaries that followed Obama proved he could mix it up with Clinton, and later in the general election John McCain, two battle hardened veterans of American politics.

He had his share of luck too, especially with the economic crisis just developing at a critical moment in the race, and McCain's bone headed decision to put Alaska Governor Sarah Palin on his ticket.

The media loved Obama too, making them an effective 12th man for his presidential run, but it was hard to blame them.

His was the most incredible story of the age. Frankly, it will rank among one of the greatest stories of this or any other century.

Flash forward almost a year later to Election Night in Harlem, and I stood alongside thousands of African Americans as the results poured in from all over the U.S.

Obama had pulled off the greatest breakthrough in the history of American politics. All around me thousands of African Americans celebrated.

Some were old enough to remember their grandparents talking about slavery. Most never believed this day would come in their lifetime.

I felt deeply elated myself and prouder of this country than I had ever been. It has been a tough eight years, watching America's reputation sink beneath the waves overseas and watching the futility of the Iraq war and the meltdown in the economy take place.

Now, however, America had once again reinvented itself, right at a critical moment, and shown the world just how extraordinary a place this can be.

The searing image for me of 2008 will be that moment in Harlem when the big television screens finally showed Pennsylvania moving into the Obama column, and the incredible reaction all around as the Obama supporters grasped what it meant.

An African American would be in the White House, just a century and a half after a vicious civil war had been fought over whether they should be slaves or not.

I don't know how historians will treat this incredible moment in our nation's history, but I suspect it will be right up there with Lincoln freeing the slaves in terms of what it means for making this country more inclusive.

In the end Obama just plain outshone every other story in 2008, and it wasn't even close. As we end the year on a note of deep uneasiness about our economy and our future prospects, the need for an inspirational leader has never been greater.

With impeccable timing America has delivered the man who might just deliver.