I have been a Barack Obama booster since the day he stepped onto the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Boston four summers ago and turned the crowd in that auditorium into a rapturous horde.

I felt a swell of pride on January 3, 2005 -- Day One of the 109th Congress -- when there were 45 new members between the houses, but all the buzz was about the lanky charmer from Illinois on the Senate side.

Once he told Tim Russert that, yes, he was mulling a run for the U.S. presidency, I wrote as fast and furiously as I could to encourage him: Run; run now.

And throughout the long and difficult primary season, I prayed that he would survive the challenges and win.

But, for all of my faith in Obama’s superior talents and what I believe to be a good heart in concert with a great mind, never once have I believed that he would be the be-all-and-end-all for what ails black America particularly or the larger society in general. He could conceivably be the most important president we’ve ever had. But he is not, and cannot be, the messiah.

Indeed, no politician can be, and, make no mistake, Obama is a true politician. His scoots from the left edge and toward the middle on some of the key issues of our day -- the Iraq pullout, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and gun control, to name a few -- prove that he not only knows how to play the game, but will play it. As every political creature knows, playing the mainstream card is the key to the general election.

Given the wide range of opinion on important topics, only a divine one could stay true left or true right down the line on every issue and still win. A lot of us amateurs like to say that we would be that way and perhaps we would. But we wouldn’t win.

No, for all of his exceptional qualities and remarkable potential, I fully expect to be disappointed, even angered, by a President Obama from time to time. He is bound to move too slowly for my taste on some matters, too quickly on others, in the wrong direction on some things or do nothing when I am screaming for him to act.

The deeply rooted problems -- poverty, racism, gender inequity, greed, corruption -- are not going to be vanquished by an Obama presidency, not even in two terms. His election will not ensure a chicken in every pot and nor make every man, a king.

Come Inauguration Day, the price at the gas pump will not go down, the foreclosure signs will not disappear, the ozone layer won’t heal and the terrorists won’t disarm their strap-on bombs.

But -- and this is what I’m counting on -- we will begin the U-turn. It may take a while before we can discern that we’re headed in a new direction, but the process will at least be underway. After eight years on the road to ruin, the other side of the highway will be a welcome sight.

And, this I’m banking on, too: That, when young black boys who are so accustomed to being shut out and shut down and shut up get a few whiffs of power being modeled by someone who looks like them, they will become intoxicated with possibility. If a black man can be president of the most powerful country on Earth, then surely they can finish school, surely they can get a good job, surely they can be husbands and fathers, surely they own a house, surely they can dig up those old dreams -- the ones they had when they were five and six, when they wanted to be a fireman and an athlete and a lawyer all at the same time; when they still believed that something grand awaited them down the road -- before they ran into all of those angry fearful eyes and clenched teeth and hard stares, not only from people who wouldn’t bother to know them but also from other boys just like them who wore those steely faces to hold back all the pain and frustration from being pummeled with presumptions.

That’s all I want from a President Obama: A U-turn.

And if he can get gas back down to two dollars a gallon? Gravy.