Race For The White House: The Die Is Cast For Obama, McCain

By Charly Ndi Chia In USA*

Tomorrow's polls would be the most dramatic electoral event in America's history. Whatever the outcome, something unprecedented would have been established.

It is either a Blackman would be stepping into the White House for the first time ever, or this country would have a woman occupying the position of Vice President for the first time too.

It would also be the first time since 1940 that an incumbent President or his Vice was not gunning for the world's most coveted job. And it would equally be an end to the longest political campaign so far, in US history.

Between 130 and 140 million Americans are registered to vote in the current exercise, with 75 percent of them being white voters, according to Board of Elections statistics. So far early voting has been taking place across the nation with hundreds of thousands of eligible voters registering and voting instantly.

While Democratic Party candidate, Barack Obama has, in the dying days of campaigns been urging his supporters to consolidate and hold fast to the current lead in opinion polls, his GOP counterpart John McCain's admonition has been for his followers to spend what is left of campaign time catching up in points with his main rival.

This tantrum of faith was apparently ignited in McCain when opinion polls recorded what the media described as a significant narrowing of the gap between him and Obama, especially in the battleground States where the 47-year old Senator from Illinois has held a comfortable lead for a significant length of time.

A McCain supporter I spoke to when the Republican candidate recently addressed a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina State, said the race would only be winnable for her party "if we, like Obama, send the e-mails to everyone on our address books, asking our own people to come out, register and start casting early votes".

The lady said more voters were leaning towards Obama on account of his aggressive campaign, oratory and approach. "Obama was here last week and there were more people lining up than could enter the rally grounds…some of them were turned away."

But her husband, Ralph Reagan, Cumberland County Republican Party Chairman, differed with her."It is because he came on a Sunday, a non working day. Obama wasted all his money here and McCain is going to win, hands down. Obama should have saved his money.

These fellows are just skewing the polls; just making the polls say what they want. We shall take the battleground States, including North Carolina at the appropriate time."
Tony Tata, another young staunch Republican also thinks that McCain would take a battleground State like North Carolina where he has been running neck and neck with Obama.

"This State is host to a military base with some 50.000 troops who shall all vote McCain, given his background. I think Obama is good, but he lacks experience to sit down with other diplomats." Reminded that Palin may also be too young and inexperienced, Tata, who is white and runs a nightclub in Fayetteville, responded that she could learn from McCain.

Not many other young Americans think like Tata. According to recent opinion polls, 66 percent of young Americans say they would vote Obama as President as opposed to 27 percent for McCain. Youths are expected to constitute an important part of the story should Obama win.

At a polling station adjacent to the University of North Carolina campus, 90 percent of voters queued up to beat the early voting deadline by Saturday evening where white youngsters, many of who openly said that they were democrats, eager to cast their votes with a prospect to changing the political status quo.

One of them told this Reporter that with droves of young volunteers constituting the Democratic Presidential nominee's campaign team, he was sure to pick the Presidential vote with the left hand.

"It is a fact that educated people, especially those connected to the university are for change", he told this Reporter.

Bush's Diminished Popularity

Enormous dissatisfaction with current issues in America may also largely work to the detriment of the Republican Party's performance in tomorrow's polls. Opinion polls statistics indicate a 70 percent satisfaction rate for incumbent President George Bush in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001.

But most recent polls put Bush's popularity standing at a mere 11 percent, even lower than George Bush Snr's record when he was seeking re-election in the midst of a serious economic recession in 2004.

There has been a sharp downhill glide for Bush over time, exacerbated by an unpopular and expensive war of attrition in Iraq and a national credit crunch.All of these hitches put together rendered the political terrain a bit too slippery for McCain and Palin and they could, may be, only be counting on the 7 percent of so-called undecided voters to swing the political pendulum on their side and upset what is currently being perceived as Obama's formidable winning gear.

It should also be noted that 94 percent of blacks polled said they would vote for a black candidate-Obama, while only 2 percent thought they could vote for McCain. Bush got 11 percent of the black vote in 2004. 

A likely Tom Brackley backlash, which some political observers suspect might truncate Obama's hopes of grabbing the key to the White House in tomorrow's polls is, however, tempered by the fact that Americans are now more socially liberal than before and wouldn't mind the White House having to be "repainted Black on tested political merit".
 

Last Minute Political Shopping

Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin held a Saturday night campaign in Raleigh, North Carolina, her fourth and last before Tuesday's polls in an apparent bid to neutralise whatever impact Obama's rally might have had here three days earlier.

But as if struggling to have the last word (and victory) in this State that has not been won by a Democratic Party nominee since 1976, Obama returns here tonight for the eighth time so far. It promises to be a last minute battle to appeal to undecided voters to trust him with their mandate.

He retires to Chicago thereafter, from where he would either be congratulated or would have the painful obligation of congratulating his opponent, McCain, should the Republican be cleared to replace Bush in the White House after tomorrow's returns.

*Charly Ndi Chia is an International Centre For Journalism Fellow, presently covering the US elections for the News & Observer newspaper in North Carolina.

Comments

[Legima Doh]

Today marks the beginning of a new epoc in the history of mankind.Today,America has proven to be America,a land of great opportunities,a land that has walked through the shoddy days of racism to freedom and equality to this day at an extent unprecedented in any other part of the world.Today Barack Obama is president elect of the world's greatest nation the Unites States of America.Yes America has proven to be the cradle of hope wherein the barriers especially of skin colours have been broken and today's Obama victory is a crumble of racial barriers and prejudices that the world has witnessed.I want to thank America for giving a new image to the black man for the whole world to see by voting for Barack Obama who proved in the election campaigns to be the one to deliver than his rival.It is not because of skin colour that I greatly support Obama but because I was and am strongly he would be the better commander in chief of this great nation given the present system of things.
Thank You America and God bless America!
Legima Doh,
ScNc

[Legima Doh]

strongly convinced he would be the better