‘We stand here as one people’

Barack Obama, a state legislator from Chicago’s South Side, who rose to rock-star status after a stirring keynote speech at the Democra...

Barack Obama, a state legislator from Chicago’s South Side, who rose to rock-star status after a stirring keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, became the third African-American since Reconstruction to be elected to the US Senate.

Obama, 43, and his wife, Michelle, addressed a racially diverse throng of supporters at the victory bash at a downtown Chicago hotel, a far more elaborate affair than when Obama announced his long-shot bid more than a year ago. ‘‘We believe in the possibility of a government that is as just and decent as our people are,’’ Obama said. ‘‘We stand here as one people, as one nation, proclaiming ourselves to be one America, with the capacity to work together to create a better future for ourselves.’’

In January, Obama will be sworn in as the occupant of the same Senate seat that Carol Moseley Braun, the chamber’s last African-American and another Chicagoan, held from 1993 to 1999. Obama trounced Alan L. Keyes, a Black Republican who moved from Maryland to replace the White nominee who withdrew after a sex scandal.

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‘‘They (minority candidates) are able to deliver speeches on the floor rarely heard…Obama is smart and he is eloquent…that can make the difference in a body that depends on that kind of argument in public policy issues,’’ said Ronald Walters, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.

If Cuban-American and Republican Mel Martinez in Florida wins, said Karen Kaufmann, also a University of Maryland professor, Republicans could quickly vault him to a position of influence. Democrats could do likewise with Obama. ‘‘But Martinez won’t have a large appeal to the largely Democratic Mexican community..So I think it will be sort of what the Republicans did with Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. They gave them important jobs, but you still don’t see African-Americans running to the Republicans.’’