Truman-style shock result is the last thing Obama needs next Tuesday

PUBLIC opinion polls in the United States seem to suggest it is all over bar the shouting. If Barack Obama does not win on Tuesday, it will be the biggest surprise since Harry Truman retained the Presidency exactly 60 years tomorrow.

My grandmother used to tell how she worked for Truman’s opponent, Governor Thomas E Dewey of New York. She felt sorry for Truman because he was a decent man who did not deserve to be hammered, so in the privacy of the voting booth she actually voted for him. She was as sore as she was stunned when he won.

The Chicago Daily Tribune was so sure of the outcome it did not wait for the votes to be counted before it came out with a banner front-page headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman”. It was not the first or the last time the polls got it wrong.