KEY POINTS:
These final two weeks must feel like the longest in Barack Obama's life.
He's suspended in midair on his way to a slam dunk. But before destiny pushes wide the doors, can it still all go wrong for him?
The probability of an upset is diminishing daily because Obama is in a formidable, steady position. The opinion poll gap is likely to narrow but a strong swing away from the favourite is unlikely at this late stage. And John McCain really does need sudden momentum.
Obama appears to have all John Kerry's states safely locked away and will without doubt win several states which voted for George W. Bush in 2004, such as Iowa and New Mexico.
Obama has McCain cornered: all of the toss-up states where the result is too close to call are Republican-held states.
RealClearPolitics.com estimates that when solid and leaning states are totalled, Obama has 286 Electoral College votes to McCain's 155. Obama needs 270 to win.
And that's without considering the toss-up states - Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina, Missouri, West Virginia, Florida and Indiana. Obama leads in five of those.
When Rasmussen Reports adds up Obama's safe, likely and leaning seats, they calculate he has 300 to McCain's 174. They estimate there are five toss-up states - Virginia, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina and Missouri.
The question hovering over the race is how solid is some of this support, especially in states which just before the sharemarket crash were trending towards McCain.
Ohio and Florida, for instance, have shuffled into Obama's column but stalled with the margin of error.
Late last week the national polls showed a slight slicing of Obama's average lead - by about 1.5 per cent - even as snap polls by CNN and CBS showed him winning the final stoush.
A Rasmussen survey on Saturday also gave Obama the victory in the third debate by 47-33 per cent. He won among men by 9 per cent, among women by 17 per cent and among independents by 11 per cent.
But did McCain press some fresh juice with his "Joe the Plumber" patter and his pouncing on Obama's rather lazy comment that "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody"?
McCain has done his best to roll his "buddy" Joe into the embodiment of his running mate Sarah Palin's "Joe Six-Pack", mentioning him relentlessly on the campaign trail.
But the real Joe Wurzelbacher is ragged around the edges: he's not a licensed plumber, he owes money in taxes and with his income he would be better off under Obama's tax plan than McCain's. Since he also has a partisan record as a Republican primary voter and fluently expressed McCain's talking points for the cameras, he might have to settle for being a Republican poster boy rather than an all-round icon.
Likewise, flashing neon over Obama's tax plans plays well with the Republican rump, but does it have wider traction? Does it scare enough independent voters? Is it really enough to bring Obama back within striking range?
McCain is not dying wondering. At the weekend he described Obama's proposed tax cuts as "welfare", and compared the Democrat's economic policies to European socialism.
It remains to be seen how this will play out, but for weeks polls have been giving remarkably similar and consistent information on how voters view the candidates on the economy. They follow the pattern of an AP poll released on Saturday. When asked whom they trusted to improve the economy, voters chose Obama 54-44 per cent. When asked who would best handle the financial crisis, they went for Obama 53-46 per cent. When asked who had a better understanding of how the financial crisis affects people, they chose Obama 56-41 per cent.
It's hard to see how McCain can overturn this advantage in such a short time, especially as Obama has been careful for months to parade the Clintonian experts on his economic team. When McCain battles Obama on the economy, he's not just taking on his opponent, he's hitting a wall of reassurance from days gone by when the US managed to produce budget surpluses.
It's hard not to think that McCain is simply on the wrong side of history with the economic crisis. The crash crystallised a public mood that has been there for a while.
The roundheads are moving in to clean-up after the Wall Street cavaliers. A dour Scotsman in Westminster wants to serve up some cold regulatory porridge to the global financial system. Senator Sensible at the third debate talked about Americans coming together "to renew a spirit of sacrifice and service and responsibility." After the excess and recklessness of the past decade, sober and thoughtful are in. At least for now.
This all runs counter to Republican instincts for less regulation, less taxes and less government.
McCain was always sold as the one Republican with moderate appeal. But a critical strategic blunder of his campaign has been to focus too much on the party's base at the expense of independents in the middle.
McCain essentially clinched the Republican nomination because of the support he received from independents during the primary season. Perhaps he assumed that popularity would hold regardless of his attempts to placate conservative Republicans with his flip-flop on Bush's tax cuts and selection of Palin.
An AP-Yahoo poll at the weekend showed that his favourability ratings now outstrip his unfavourable ratings by just 5 points compared with a 21-point gap a month ago. Obama has increased his gap from 5 to 15 points over the same period and leads McCain in likeability by 57-52 per cent.
Riding the base to victory worked for President Bush but in 2004 the numbers of Democrats and Republicans were very even. In 2006, when the Democrats swept Congress, their advantage in party affiliation was about 6 per cent.
AP reports that exit polls in presidential races since 1992 show the biggest edge in party identification by voters was a four-percentage-point advantage Democrats had in 1996 (they won) and 2000 (won the popular vote, lost the election). AP reports that in 2000, Bush won independents by 2 per cent. Bush and Kerry split them evenly in 2004.
This year, the Democrats have a 5-10 per cent advantage over the Republicans and unaffiliated voters make up about a quarter of the electorate. Rasmussen puts the split at 40 per cent Democrats, 33 per cent Republicans and 27 per cent independents.
African Americans and Hispanics heavily favour Obama.
All this means McCain needs a wide lead with independents to make up the gap. In particular he needs white independents who, Politico.com reports, make up 80 per cent of independents.
However, a recent AP-Gfk poll showed independents as a whole leaning 44-41 per cent for Obama.
The AP-Gfk poll also showed the views of independent voters on issues such as the economy were much closer to those of Democrats than Republicans. The poll found that 82 per cent of independents and 89 per cent of Democrats worry the economic crisis will cause a long-term toll on them, compared with 65 per cent of Republicans.
AP reports that "like Democrats and unlike Republicans, most independents said they'd prefer a candidate they trust to handle the economy to one they trust on national security. They said Obama would better deal with the financial crisis and better understands its impact on them."
Independents also chimed with Democrats in their views on Palin. They marked her lower than McCain, Obama and Joe Biden for caring about people like them, understanding the country's problems and having enough experience to be president. Just 22 per cent of independents said she had the right background to be successful.
A study by Politico.com at the weekend found that Obama had gained an edge among white independents of 45-43 per cent for the first time.
Clearly, McCain's best chance of winning now - perhaps his only chance of winning - is for him to show his chops as a leader in an international, security crisis.
Foreign policy is still a dangerous area of vulnerability for Obama. Osama bin Laden may yet put in an 11th-hour cameo as he did four years ago when a video in the final week did Kerry no favours. As with his approach on the economy, Obama is trying to insure himself against an unwelcome guest appearance by surrounding himself with reassuring faces.
He picked the Democrats' Senate foreign policy expert Biden as his running mate. In the third debate he referred to Senator Dick Lugar, the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former Nato Supreme Allied Commander General Jim Jones as people he would contact "if I'm interested in figuring out my foreign policy [and] who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House."
Former Bush Administration Secretary of State Colin Powell was tipped to endorse Obama today.
Obama may have erased some concerns about his inexperience over the past month, but
Security remains McCain's turf in the eyes of many voters. The AP-GfK survey found "overwhelming numbers" of independents say McCain has the right experience for the White House.
The Politico study found that independent white men believe by 62-23 per cent, that McCain is more capable of making wise decisions about what to do in Iraq. For white female independents the gap is 52-29 per cent. Politico reports that 60 per cent of white independents believe McCain would do the best job of making wise decisions about foreign policy. "These voters believe McCain could better defend against a terrorist attack by more than a 2-1 ratio. Taken as a whole, this data suggests that a national security or terrorism-related event could suddenly move these voters toward the Republican nominee."
But one final advantage is fluttering above Obama's thin shoulders - the mantle of a winner. There is a growing perception that he's the president-in-waiting.
Yesterday 100,000 greeted "The One" in St Louis, Missouri. And 75,000 heard him speak in Kansas City.
The way the campaign has unfolded, Obama has been able to presidentially point the way to a different future, even as McCain the underdog has tried to bite and scratch to catch up. Guess which is more appealing.
McCain may learn how quickly "underdog" can become "loser".
