GALLUP POLL
Obama, 52%; McCain, 42%
Election endgame grips black America
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:28:00 11/03/2008
Filed Under: US elections, Politics
WASHINGTON—History’s longest and most costly US election campaign—with a price tag estimated at $2 billion—headed into the final stretch, with Democrat Barack Obama basking in a hefty poll lead on Sunday and Republican John McCain looking to pull a shock upset.
In its latest daily tracking survey, Gallup had Obama gaining momentum and leading 52 percent to 42 percent.
Going into the homestretch, Obama and McCain hurled themselves into a herculean last 48 hours of campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s election that could enshrine the first US black president and transform US foreign policy.
The endgame has gripped black America with a powerful mixture of emotions.
Obama’s potential victory represents a previously unimaginable triumph over centuries of racism. In a country still riven by racial divides, his election would bring Martin Luther King’s dream of equality a step closer.
But beneath the hope and pride lies fear—of polling inaccuracy, voting chicanery, or the type of injustice and violence that have historically stymied African-American progress.
A Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll put the figure at 53 percent for Obama and 44 percent for McCain.
In the three-day Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby tracking poll released on Sunday, Obama’s lead firmed to 6 points—50 to 44 percent—among likely voters.
“It is hard to see where McCain goes from here,” pollster John Zogby said.
An Associated Press-Yahoo News national poll of likely voters put the first-term Illinois senator ahead, 51 to 43, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
According to the AP-Yahoo poll, one in seven voters—14 percent of the total—said they were undecided or might yet change their minds. But a rule of thumb among pollsters is that undecided voters generally split evenly between the leading candidates.
Portents of defeat?
Another AP-Yahoo News survey found that while 43 percent of Obama’s backers said they were excited by their candidate’s campaign, just 13 percent of McCain’s backers voiced a similar sentiment.
All of this is a bad sign for McCain, according to George E. Marcus, a political scientist from Williams College, who has studied the role emotion plays in politics.
Negative feelings about a campaign can discourage voters by making them less likely to go through what can be a painful process: Voting for someone who will lose, Marcus said.
McCain’s campaign says the Arizona senator is closing the gap in the final days. Privately, McCain’s aides said he trailed Obama by just 4 points nationwide in internal polling.
The candidates were focused on Sunday on winning over the undecided voters and encouraging their supporters to get to the polls. The campaign has narrowed down to states that have been reliably Republican in recent elections, or in the case of Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina, have not voted for a Democratic hopeful in decades.
A confident Obama promised to heal America’s political divisions while McCain pledged to score a historic upset.
For Obama, it was a time for soaring rhetoric and forays deep into Republican territory, buoyed by record campaign donations and encouraging poll numbers.
“We have a righteous wind at our back,” he said of his bid to become the first black American president.
For McCain, a former Navy pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war, the weekend was his last chance to persuade voters to defy the polls and sweep him into office.
“I’m not afraid of the fight, I’m ready for it and you’re going to fight with me,” McCain told supporters in Virginia.
Campaign themes
Both candidates were backed by armies of supporters manning phone banks, handing out brochures and spinning journalists as the campaigns made their final push in the race that carried a $2-billion price tag.
McCain’s hopes hinged on winning all or nearly all the states that carried Bush to victory in 2004, and possibly carrying Pennsylvania to give him a margin for error in America’s state-by-state system of choosing a president.
Both candidates said the stakes could scarcely be higher.
“If you give me your vote on Tuesday, we won’t just win this election—together, we will change this country and change the world,” Obama said in a nationwide Democratic radio address.
He hammered away at his campaign themes, promising tax breaks for families, lower health care costs and an end to the Iraq war. He is proposing tax increases on families making over $250,000 and individuals making over $200,000, and tax cuts for the 95 percent of workers making less than $200,000.
Faith in America
McCain, meanwhile, blasted Obama for saying that his “faith in the American people was vindicated” by his victory in the Iowa caucuses in January.
“My country has never had to prove anything to me, my friends,” McCain said. “I’ve always had faith in it and I’ve been humbled and honored to serve it.”
Obama has rallied huge crowds by stressing that he would take the United States in a new direction at home and abroad. But, McCain and his supporters have fought back, accusing Obama of associating with radicals, advocating surrender in Iraq and supporting socialist economic policies.
McCain pledged to steer the United States through the current tough economic times. But he warned that Americans should not lose sight of the international threats the country faces—threats he says Obama is too inexperienced to handle.
Both campaigns were braced for surprises. One came late Friday, after the AP learned that Obama’s aunt was apparently in the US illegally.
Zeituni Onyango, 56, was instructed to return to Kenya four years ago by a US immigration judge who denied her asylum request. She lives in Boston.
The Obama campaign said the senator “has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed.” The campaign was also returning $260 that Onyango had contributed over several months.
Electoral votes
Barring major news, the candidates will continue the strategic chess game of state-by-state campaigning that marks US presidential contests.
Under the US system, the president is not elected by direct popular vote nationwide. Instead, the successful candidate must win 270 out of 538 electoral votes in what amounts to a series of individual state contests. Electoral votes are allocated to each state roughly according to population.
While McCain appeared to be struggling to gain ground, he has pulled off upsets before. After his campaign was declared dead last year, he went on to win the Republican nomination.
But McCain may be running out of time. His campaign has been plagued by internal bickering and divisions in the party ranks, particularly over his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
A third of the Senate’s 100 seats are also up for grabs though Democrats may fall short of the 60-vote threshold needed to thwart Republican obstruction tactics.
Every seat is up in the House of Representatives and Democrats hope to pad their majority by 25 seats or more.
Reports from AP, AFP, Reuters
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