What Obama White House might look like

• The way he has run his campaign might be a pointer to how he will run the economy

From six to 10 Obama went to Islamic public schools in Jakarta, where he lived with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. His mother refused to take him to the expatriate schools, preferring to personally give her son additional tuition at 4.30 in the morning.

Young Obama ran the streets, bare-foot, with the children of farmers, servants, tailors and clerks.

No university degree or policy briefing can beat this experience. President Obama will have the right instincts.

And if the power of the White House should tempt him to forget where he came from, he will have Michelle to remind him. No-one knows how to keep Obama’s feet on the ground like his wife.

The writer is a journalism lecturer of journalism, United States International University, Nairobi