Rio de Janeiro- Though most Latin Americans were asleep when Barack Obama claimed victory late last night, they woke up in a state of grace. From morning newscasts to talk radio, from coffee shops to cyberspace, the chatter was all about Obama’s victory and its portents for the region and the world. The legion of pundits and commentators proclaimed a new era of “esperanza”—hope—echoing in the vernacular Obama’s patented slogan, but also a kind of end of days for a brand of politics that had won the United States global enmity. “The beginning of moral regeneration,” heralded a leading columnist in La Nacion, the big Argentina newspaper. “How incredible that the United States, whose chief enemies recently were named Hussein and Osama, has elected a President Hussein Obama.” wrote Hermógenes Pérez de Arce, a columnists for El Mercúrio of Chile. The Brazilian daily O Estado de São Paulo was more succinct. “Change Has Arrived,” blared the banner headline.

Latin America, not unlike the rest of the world, has long been loco por Obama, of course. Opinion polls consistently gave him a 7 or 8 to one margin over McCain in Central and South America. “What took you so long,” you could almost hear them gasping. Latin media were deployed in record numbers to cover the campaign, following the candidates from stump to stump. (No matter that Obama the candidate rarely missed an opportunity to pillory free trade agreements; he voted against the Colombia-U.S. bilateral trade pact and has called for an overhaul of the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada that most Latins and U.S. Latinos enthusiastically support.) Obama is “the better choice for U.S. president…for Latin America, for the Hispanic community, for the United States and for the world,” said Poder, a leading Hispanic monthly edited in Miami and distributed widely in Latin America.

In a way that’s surprising. A mid October poll by Latinobarometro, conducted in 18 countries in Central and South America, shows that while Latins may be enthusiastic about Obama, they have low expectations. Asked which candidate would be best for Latin America, Obama won by a margin of almost four to one. But 63 percent of respondents said that it didn’t matter, they had no opinion, or declined to answer. Only 22 percent said they thought the next U.S. president would pay more attention to the region. The Brazilian ambassador to the United States recently told of penning a four-page letter to Obama laying out key regional policy issues. In the name of four Latin nations, he hand delivered the letter to Dan Restrepo, a top Obama aide in August—and never heard another word about it. But don’t tell that to Luiz Roberto Costa, a computer technician in Rio de Janeiro and an ardent Obama fan. “Here is a guy who worked and studied and lifted himself up. He’s a ray of light,” says Costa. “Like it or not, we are all connected to the U.S. Our economic stability depends on you [Americans]. He is change and that change is going to be good for Brazil and good for the world.” But as a Brazilian saying goes, “hope is the last to die.”