After months of bitter struggling between New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Obama has edged out Clinton to become the first-ever African-American presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party.

While the November contest for president of the world's most powerful democracy has yet to even warm up, the primary battle has already proven that Americans are finally ready to accept either a woman or a member of a racial minority to be their next commander-in-chief.

We would hope that voters here in Taiwan could be as gracious as their counterparts were in the United States this primary season.

Indeed, while Obama has come out the winner of the primary battle, he only gained a handful more delegates to the Democratic National Convention and the two came close to splitting the primary votes in half.

Here in Taiwan, many people were closely observing how the American public would react to the historic candidacies of Clinton and Obama.

Senator Clinton has long been a household name here in Taiwan dating back to the days of her former president husband between 1993 and 2001.

But the news media in Taiwan has recently demonstrated a deep fascination with the out-of-nowhere stardom of Senator Obama, who was virtually unknown in Asia until he started beating Clinton in state primaries a few months ago.

Obama has since been widely covered in the domestic news media, even landing on the covers of local news magazines on several occasions.

While the public in Taiwan is still largely unaware of what Obama's agenda is or what he stands for, his ability to mesmerize young voters and overcome seemingly overwhelming odds has captured public attention here.

Now that Obama is the presumptive nominee, our news media will start to explore the candidate's background and delve deeply into the reasons why Obama was able to defeat Clinton, a true establishment candidate who until a few months ago was seen as a sure winner.

Our media will also be curious to learn more about what Senator Obama's foreign policy, especially toward this region, would be if he wins the election in November.

In our view, the primary battle between Obama and Clinton shows that in a representative democracy, competition between rival candidates during the primary stage can ultimately help renew enthusiasm and support among the party's base.While there were strong doubts that Clinton's supporters would back Obama after such a nasty race between the two senators, polls taken since Clinton's bow-out show that most Democrats are now on board with the presumed candidate.

In the meantime, Senator Obama has done much to change the Democratic Party's political agenda as he tailors the party platform toward younger people and voters who have stayed away from the polls for many elections.

While much should be said about Obama's status as the first African-American nominee of a major U.S. party, the primary victory scored by Senator Obama also shows that Americans are eager to welcome new leadership.

This falls in line with the trend here in Taiwan to shun "old faces" in favor of "new faces" whose agendas are largely untested.

Even though Senator Obama has only served a single term in the U.S. Senate and most Americans hardly knew of him until several months ago, he has captured the idealistic spirit of youthful leadership that once belonged to another young Democratic Party leader, former President John F. Kennedy.

Observing the U.S. election from our vantage point here in Taiwan, the most obvious danger for Obama's candidacy will be any unknown skeletons Obama might have lurking in a closet somewhere.

We assume that aides working for Obama's rival, Republican Party nominee Senator John McCain, are already working at full speed to dig up negative information on Obama now that Clinton has formally endorsed her former rival.

While Clinton was dragged through the mud and had her every indiscretion exposed and analyzed to pieces years ago, the world press has yet to get serious about investigating Senator Obama's past.

We hope that any developments that might seriously harm Obama's candidacy were already brought out by Clinton during the primary season.

This way, the American people will have a genuine choice presented before them when they go to the polls this coming November.