As near as we can tell, the 2008 presidential election first was referenced in the Post-Dispatch on Sept. 23, 2003, when then-New York Times columnist William Safire threw out the first name: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

A month later, we printed a column by George Will of the Washington Post that touted then-Colorado Gov. Bill Owens as a Republican nominee in 2008. A year later, the floodgates had opened wide as such worthies as Sam Brownback, Wesley Clark, Rick Santorum, Tom Vilsack and a dozen others began claiming their moment in the sun.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona always was a part of the mix, particularly after he mended fences with President George W. Bush in June 2004. That same month, Sarah Palin was chairing the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission, and Barack Obama was leading a fight against new federal overtime rules in the Illinois state Senate. The Great Mentioner (in Russell Baker's classic phrase) didn't utter his name until his Democratic convention keynote speech on July 27, 2004.

So while it may seem that John McCain and Barack Obama have been running for president forever, it's actually been only 51 months.

And now the end is near. We endorsed both men in their respective primaries in Illinois and Missouri in February. We endorsed Obama in Tuesday's election, believing the 47-year-old junior senator from Illinois has the ability to become a transformative figure in what figures to be a difficult period in America's history.

Still, if Campaign 2008 proves anything, it's how useless long-range political forecasts can be. Events have a way of intruding. During the long campaign, Obama and his advisers have proved themselves to be far more able than McCain and his to adapt and react to changing events, whether it be the rants of his former pastor, attack politics or the credit crisis on Wall Street.

Of the two candidates, McCain has had the tougher slog. Not only did he have to separate himself from his past support for the policies of an unpopular Republican president, but he also had to separate himself from his own record as a party maverick, even as he embraced the label. No wonder his campaign has seemed stuck in a perpetual identity crisis.

Obama hasn't had to run against himself. But he did have to run against Clinton and the legacy of former President Bill Clinton, which seemed to grow every time George W. Bush opened his mouth. The Clinton machine tempered Obama in ways that not even the worst efforts of the Republican attack machine ("palling around with terrorists") could dent.

For all of this, Obama could not have come this far without the greatest fundraising machine in the history of politics. As of two weeks ago, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, he had raised $640 million from more than 3.1 million individual donors; in September, when he raised $150 million, his average donation was $86.

The implications of this are clear: Without a system of publicly financed campaigns, competent candidates who are not charismatic fundraisers will start in a deep hole. Whether this is good for democracy is something the next president should consider.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH.