KEY POINTS:
Its been almost impossible for months to take a Sunday stroll down Broadway on Manhattan's lefty Upper West side and not be politely accosted by one of the throngs of bubbly, young Obama campaign workers. The brownstones hiding behind autumn's thinning plane trees here are within the Democratic epicenter of very Democrat New York. The post code is on the top rungs of the list of Obama donors. His campaign has wanted to ensure that every potential sympathizer in these plentiful grounds is registered and eligible to vote today.
There they were again in Sunday's chill. Yet to talk to these Obama campaign workers is to uncover a deep seated paranoia about Tuesday's outcome. They fear the agonies of the night of counting. Many can remember the long march to the crushing result in 2000. Then came their misplaced jubilation in 2004 when they thought they'd beaten George Bush - only to be shunted into another defeat as the counting wore on. For many, to speak of an Obama victory in America today is a place they don't want to go. The fear the jinx. After all the barren years , can it really be true that a black man , hardly known five years ago, is set to beat - even thrash - an old white guy, Washington veteran and war hero - a ready made American president?
Well, yes. The cold, hard evidence of months and months of polling says it is so. Living Democrats have no real memory of time when their party was so poised to for a victory of such epic proportions. Bill Clinton won with just 43 per cent of the vote in 1992. Jimmy Carter squeaked in 1976 and John Kennedy barely got home in 1960. For the ;last great Democratic Presidential win, you have to go all way the back to Franklin D Roosevelt's victory amid the Depression to when he carried all but six states . Many things have taken the Democrats to the heady position they're in now. Most of all though, the familiar sight all through Upper Manhattan of Democrat campaign workers must tell us something about how very well the Democrats organized themselves across America. For Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. They have moved record numbers of young people to vote today. And Hispanics. And tens of thousands of poor African Americans who long ago opted out of the political life of the nation, convinced it would deliver nothing their way. When Barack Obama took solidly white Iowa in the primaries he showed that in today's America white people are prepared to vote for an intelligent , charismatic colored man who is not angry nor emotional. The victory on the State of Iowa was the great turning point. It probably destroyed Hilary Clinton's bid to become the Democratic nominee. It greatly elevated Obama .
John McCain can only look on in bewildered wonderment at the wreckage of Wall Street and the resentment of millions of older Americans who are watching their retirement funds shrink and feeling their anxieties mount. They appear to mostly blame the Republican incumbency, believing that the signs of looming carnage have been around a longtime. Obama may have escaped the Democrats supporting role in the deregulation of the American financial system.
And McCain must look to himself. He's lurched on and off message. Negative and positive. Nasty and humble. Sullen and sunny. Change and staying course. Maverick and tradionalist. But in a campaign of many poor moments, his finest, surely, was his unhesitating admonishment of his own supporters who spoke at his rallies of their hatred and loathing of his opponent. He has his honor, if not a victory.
Events have smiled upon Obama. He has raised an absolutely staggering amount of money - something approaching US$ 700 million . He's most certainly won each leader's debate. He 's out campaigned, out thought , out performed and out spent John McCain and the hapless Sarah Palin.
We won't know the outcome of the election for at least another 36 hours. Will there be a Bradley effect - the practice of some white voters to lying to pollsters about supporting a black candidate and then supporting the white candidate on election day? You'd have to expect it. The old white guy, I think, will turn many disaffected white working class back his way a minute to midnight. The fear of the unknown maybe more than they can bear.
It is a all a vast, compelling and ultimately uplifting spectacle. All of the world will watch. It will cheer for America is Obama does win. And wonder if he doesn't.
