Yes they can

Democrat Barack Obama has defeated Republican John McCain to make history as the first black to be elected U.S. president.

The next president will inherit horrendous economic problems that will limit the scope of his ambitions. Obama, in his final rallies, was already tempering his early promise of change with warnings about how he would have to curb some of his more ambitious plans, trying to lower expectations that he would be able to move quickly on healthcare and education reform, The Guardian says.

Is Russia celebrating? Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili said the victory of either Barack Obama or John McCain would satisfy him, Interfax reported.

But The friendship of John McCain and Mikheil Saakashvili is no news. Two policymakers even water-skied in 2006.

Who did the Kremlin favor to be the next U.S. President? Was it John McCain, the hard-nosed hawk who grew to maturity during the Cold War? Or was it Hillary Clinton - the militarily well-studied Senator from New York? Nope - it seems that, according to this op-ed article from Russia’s Kommersant newpaper, Barack Obama was the best bet for Russia - although only marginally so. Konstantin Kosachev who is chairman of the Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, writes, ‘Barack Obama looks like the candidate that can be expected to take the greatest strides toward Russia, since unlike McCain, he’s not infected with any Cold War phobias, and unlike Clinton, he won’t be tied down by the old habits of his advisors’, wrote Konstantin Kosachev in The Kommersant before the election.

Wliliam Kern thinks that For Russia, Obama’s the Best of a Bad Lot

But McCain has long criticized Russia, particularly for what he sees as its backsliding on democratic reforms and human rights. "For many years, I have warned against Russian actions that undermine the sovereignty of its neighbors," he said. "Unfortunately, we have seen in recent days Russia demonstrate that these concerns were well-founded."