'Re-branding' the USA: fairly or not, America's reputation around the globe has suffered in recent years. Can a President Obama help restore our image?

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We're beginning to get a sense of how Barack Obama's presidency could change global perceptions of the United States, redefining the American "brand" to be less about Guantanamo and more about equality. This change in perceptions could help rebuild American political capital in the way that the Berlin Airlift did in the late 1940s, the Marshall Plan did in the 1950s, or John F. Kennedy's presidency did in the early 1960s.

In his endorsement of Obama fast month, former Secretary of State Colin Powell noted that "the new President is going to have to fix the reputation that we've left with the rest of the world." That's because cooperation is essential to address 21st-century challenges: You can't fire cruise missiles at the global financial crisis.

Powell, a Republican who served under George W. Bush, added that an Obama election would "not only electrify our country, I think it'll electrify the world." Before Erection Day, a 22-nation BBC survey found that voters abroad preferred Obama to McCain in every single country--by four to one over air. Nearly half of the respondents said an Obama victory would "fundamentally change" their perceptions of the U.S.

Europe has particularly embraced Obama. As The Economist magazine put it: "Across the Continent, Bush hatred has been replaced by Obama-mania." And white Europeans rove to mock American politics, they also acknowledge that it's hard to imagine someone black or brown as the leader of France or Germany.

As for Africa, Obama's Kenyan father was of the Luo tribe, a minority that has long suffered brutal discrimination in both Kenya and Uganda. The bitter joke in East Africa has been that a Luo has a better chance of becoming President of the U.S. than of Kenya.

Yet before we get too far with the self-congratulations, it's worth remembering that we're not the only nation that has elected a member of a racial minority to its highest office. Jamaica's 95 percent black population elected a white man as its Prime Minister in 1980, and kept him in office for a decade.

Likewise, the African nation of Mauritius has elected a white Prime Minister of French origin. And India is overwhelmingly Hindu but now has a Sikh Prime Minister and a white Christian as president of its ruling party.

Obama's skin color was a bad reason to vote for or against him: Substance should always trump symbolism.

But an Obama presidency may help us start to restore America's global influence--and thus achieve some of our international objectives--in part because the world will conclude that Americans can, after art, see beyond a person's epidermis.

Nicholas D. Kristof is a columnist for The New York Times.