With five states to go in the Democratic party presidential nomination race, Mr Charles Obitah already has his voter card ready for the November 4 election.

The Kenyan-born man, who became US citizen only a few months ago, is looking forward to voting for Barack Obama after the Illinois senator pulled away in the nomination race by picking up more super-delegates this week.

Obama now appears certain to clinch the party's ticket that would allow him to wrestle with John MacCain in the November polls despite suffering one of his worst defeats in Western Virginia last Tuesday.

American citizen

"I have become an American citizen at the right time. I am determined to vote for Mr Obama come November and I am sure he will emerge victorious," says Mr Obitah who has been in the country since 1996.

"Being an African-American, Mr Obama will be the best person to fight racial prejudices that have dogged this country for many years."

Mr Obitah's remarks represent the mood among many Kenyans, and all black people, in the US.

Dr Omari Onyango who lives in California says Obama's rise from a son of a Kenyan immigrant, raised by a single mother at the peak of the civil rights movement, to a potential President of the US explains the opportunities that all Kenyans have outside of their country.

Dr Onyango predicts that Obama will not only win the nomination for the Democratic Party but also in the November election.

"Given the strength of a coalition he has built around himself and the support he is getting from all parts of the country, Mr Obama will prevail," he says.

Bound to succeed

Mr Mishael Ondieki, the first Kenyan journalist to break the Obama story to the Kenyan public, says Obama's story is evidence that when people rally behind a cause, they are bound to succeed, regardless of their community affiliation.

He points out that Obama is able to succeed by giving the electorate hope and working hard in his campaigns.

"If Mr Obama, a member of African-Americans that comprise only 13 per cent of the total population, is able to beat nine white contestants to become a nominee for the Democratic Party, any Kenyan with a vision and specific plans to solve people's problems can lead Kenya to prosperity," he adds.

Another Kenyan living in the country, Wangari Kihara, says Obama may change the direction of world politics for the better, and that his story in itself may become hope for the hopeless.

Some not only see Obama's success as a realisation of Dr Matin Luther King's dream for African-Americans, but also a realisation of a dream for the low-income earners and recent immigrants.

Since Obama won the North Carolina primary by a double-digit margin two weeks ago, many people, including the media, have proposed that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, bow out to allow him to focus on the November election.

On Tuesday, The Kansas City Star commentator Mary Sanchez said Mrs Clinton's chance to make a graceful exit may have already passed.

"It's time for Hillary Clinton to take a tip and leave the presidential race," she said.

"She should save her political future and concede the nomination to Mr Obama. The Democratic Party's chances to win the White House are at stake now, not just her own career. Or her husband's ambitions, if it is he who is pushing her to continue in a race she cannot win."

The writer said the only hope that remains for Clinton "is some sort of huge gaffe on the part of Mr Obama - which is unlikely, as he gains more Teflon the longer he stays in the race".

Yet that is unlikely given his ability to have waded the waters of his controversial pastor Rev Jeremiah Wright's recent remarks.

Laudable goals

Ms Sanchez said: "Months ago, the choice presented to Democratic voters was a toss-up between two laudable goals: whether to elect the nation's first black presidential nominee or the first female one.

Campaigning had not yet turned negative, and it was possible to feel that, no matter who won, the party was on its way to victory and making history.

According to Caesar Williams, a media consultant in Kansas City who supports Obama, much of black America awaits the outcome of the 2008 presidential election process with bated breath.

Siringi is a 'Nation' journalist on Alfred Friendly Fellowships in the US