What makes light bright? I remember being asked that riddle when I was a child. There was a group of us, and we answered variously: the clearness of the bulb, the strength of the wattage, the fact that the lamp was fluorescent rather than incandescent. Anyone of which seems to reasonably answer the question. But the riddle-giver shook his head as riddle-givers are wont to do and answered his own question with Zen-like luminescence: the dark.

It?s not a scientific answer, but it?s a most insightful one. The darker the surroundings, the brighter light is.

I remembered that in light of the election in the United States. As I write this, the election hasn?t taken place yet, though many voters have already voted, taking advantage of the early voting system. Indeed, this is one election that has seen a record turnout of early voters, among its many firsts. The predictions, of course, are of an Obama victory, though probably not by a wide margin. I?ll go out on a limb and say it will be a landslide.

I remember the riddle in connection with these elections because of two questions someone asked me recently. One was: How did Obama get this far? And two: Can we produce our own Obama?

To the first question, well, the economy might be a good answer. The collapse of Wall Street came at a thoroughly inconvenient time for the Republicans. Had it happened next year or next month or next week, John McCain might have stood a chance. However McCain tried to dissociate himself from George W. Bush, he could not extricate himself from the economic policies that led to the disaster. The irony, in fact, was that he kept twitting Obama for his ?socialism??anything entailing government intervention in the economy smacked of it?when the bailout of Wall Street itself was every inch an intervention by government to correct failed policies.

More than that, the economy did one thing, which was important for Obama: It made Americans color blind. Or it made Americans see only one color above all others. That color was not black or white, it was green?and I don?t mean the Incredible Hulk.

The Iraq War might be a good answer, too. Americans do not particularly care about the rest of the world. Many of them probably don?t even know where Iraq is. Ronald Reagan was disliked abroad but loved at home. Jimmy Carter was respected abroad but was unpopular at home. Most Americans probably would not have cared about the Iraq War, except that it began bringing home young Americans in body bags in unacceptable numbers. Then Iraq came to have a place in the map, just as Vietnam did for an older generation.

The gratuity of the war, or invasion which it really was, offered Obama no small ammunition. However McCain argued that the US was winning the war, he could offer no justification for why the US was fighting it. Or solace to grieving mothers and fearful fathers for why they have lost, or must lose, their boys to it. Just the cold comfort of backwater patriotism.

They might be good answers, but the one answer I think that captures it all is: George W. Bush.

Bush is the one thing that got Obama this far. I?ve written about this before, but it bears repeating at the end of the day?or at the end of a long and riveting campaign, one that had the eyes of the world glued to it. Without Bush, the Democrats might have trotted out another John Kerry, who might have lost the ball as well. This time around, it was merely a tossup between the first woman or the first black president of America.

Bush was the dark that made Obama bright. He was the blackness that drove Americans to want change, even so radical a change as driving America back to its democratic roots.

Can we produce our own Obama?

Well, I do not share the pessimism of those who say none of the ?presidential aspirants,? remotely carries the spark. That is looking at the wrong place. We did have a Cory Aquino long before the US had an Obama, and she did not come from the ranks of the ?presidential aspirants,? or ?Ferdinand Marcos? successors? as they were called then. She came from far afield, ?an ordinary housewife,? as Marcos derisively called her, a ?walang alam? [ignoramus] in contrast to his being a man of experience, just as McCain tried to belittle Obama as someone without experience. Well, having no experience in wreaking evil, or being party to it, is the best qualification there is in a situation like that. Cory became the symbol of someone who quested for justice, who longed for an end to the oppression. Just like all of us. ?Hindi siya nag-iisa.? [She was not alone.]

I don?t know that we can have another Obama or Cory. I do not discount the possibility; darkness has a way of compelling light by the sheer need for it, though as Obama, Cory and ?Lord of the Rings? show, light has a way of coming from the most unlikely places. Abominations are not ended by kings and elves and wizards, they are ended by lowly Hobbits, who are least impervious to the temptations of power.

In any case, ?Obama? doesn?t have to take the form of one particular face or person. It can always be an idea. The only thing to thank people like George W and Gloria for, if you can thank them for anything, is that they make you want change, even so radical a change as driving you back to your fundamental roots or condition as a human being. If Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has done us a service, it is to show us a tyranny that can make us shout, ?Never again!? and truly mean it. It is to make us crave the kind of ?radical reforms? Archbishop Angel Lagdameo and several other bishops were calling for last week, the kind that ?conquers complacency, cynicism and apathy.? It is to make us see the face of utter evil and rediscover the need for unrelenting good.

Darkness does make light bright.