Obama stands on threshold of history as US finally votes

BARACK OBAMA stands on the brink of history today as polls last night gave the Democrat a solid lead over John McCain on the last day of campaigning for the most dramatic US presidential vote in a generation.

But McCain, who has no room for error in the tense battle for a handful of toss- up states, vowed to confound the pollsters and wrench victory from the African-American’s grasp tonight.

The 47-year-old Democrat stressed the historic nature of his quest to be America’s first black president, striking an optimistic tone as fresh polls gave him a wide lead and heaped further pressure on McCain.

“This is a defining moment in our history,” Obama wrote in an article published in The Wall Street Journal. “Tomorrow, I ask you to write our nation’s next great chapter... If you give me your vote, we won’t just win this election — together, we will change this country and change the world.”

McCain, a 72-year-old former prisoner of war in Vietnam, was defiant. “My opponent is measuring the drapes at the White House,” he said, as he wrapped up a frenzied day of campaigning with a rally in Miami.

“The Mac is back! And we’re going to win this election,” he said.

The Republican yesterday dashed through at least seven states on the marathon campaign’s final day. Obama blitzed through Florida, North Carolina and Virginia bidding to storm Republican bastions and turn them over to his side.

Rallying supporters in Ohio on Sunday, Obama said his rival’s policies would extend President George W Bush’s legacy of financial crisis and “war without end” in Iraq.

In his own Wall Street Journal article, McCain shot back at his rival: “Senator Obama wants to raise taxes and restrict trade... The last time America did that in a bad economy it led to the Great Depression.”

The final pre-election poll of Gallup-USA Today published yesterday gave Obama a yawning lead of 11 points — 55% to 44% for McCain.

“It would take an improbable last-minute shift in voter preferences, or a huge Republican advantage in election day turnout, for McCain to improve enough upon his predicted share of the vote... to overcome his deficit to Obama,” the pollster said.

A new Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll put Obama ahead on 51% to 43%. CNN’s latest poll on had Obama with a 53-46% edge, a Washington Post- ABC News poll gave him 54% to 43%, and Rasmussen said he was at 51% to McCain’s 46%.

Obama also leads by slimmer margins in the battleground states where the election will be won and lost, including Virginia and North Carolina which have not backed a Democratic hopeful in decades.

A poll from Quinnipiac University, Connecticut, examining the three states with the largest number of electoral votes — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida — found Obama’s lead had narrowed slightly to 51-42 in Ohio and 53-41 in Pennsylvania, while Florida was too close to call.

A separate poll by The Washington Post and ABC said that in six states up for grabs, support was roughly split with 51% for Obama and 47% for McCain.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) survey released yesterday said that 59% of voters feel Obama can bring “change”, while about the same number say McCain cannot.

McCain’s whistlestop tour yesterday was expected to include campaign stops in Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada before he was to head home to Arizona.

Another CNN/ORC poll meanwhile suggested that McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, may be dragging down the Republican’s chances. The news network said McCain had 48% support, but backing for McCain and Palin as a unit was lower, at 46%.

The battle has narrowed to states that have been reliably Republican in recent elections, as Obama’s deep- pocketed campaign expands to places Democrats have not won in years.

Victories in Colorado and Nevada out west, on top of his lock on Iowa, would let Obama clinch the White House without even winning the states that decided the past two elections: Ohio and Florida.

To win, a candidate needs to gain 270 votes in the Electoral College that formally selects the next president. States are apportioned electoral votes according to the size of their population and in most cases the winner of a state’s popular vote gets all its electoral ones.

After campaigning for almost two years, the candidates were running on adrenaline and buoyed by big crowds, preparing to end up in their home states — Obama in Illinois, McCain in Arizona — to await judgement tonight.

Huge challenges await the winner, including restoring growth to the sagging US economy, fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, getting a handle on a budget deficit running close to $500 billion and restoring the lustre of the world’s lone superpower.

Interest in the election to determine a successor to unpopular President George W Bush is high. Millions of Americans had already voted early and election officials were bracing for long lines at polling stations.

A record turnout, easily eclipsing the 2004 vote total of more than 121 million, is possible.

The candidates began the last day of campaign 2008 in Florida, scene of the famous 2000 recount battle that Bush won and a state McCain needs to win.

“After decades of broken politics in Washington, eight years of failed policies from George Bush, and 21 months of a campaign that has taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are one day away from change in America,” Obama told supporters in Jacksonville, Florida.