McCain 'surge' takes race to wire
THE race for the White House is on a knife edge with the outcome of tomorrow’s historic election still uncertain, both sides admitted yesterday.
Some Republican stalwarts are forecasting a landslide for their opponent Barack Obama while Democrats are urging caution as at least one poll showed John McCain in the lead.
Obama, 47, has been careful to stick to saying “If I am President” not “when” even as he surged ahead in the closing days of his campaign.
He told supporters that in the final moments before the election: “Every minute, every second counts.”
With so many young voters and older African-Americans planning to head to the polls for the first time, and many conservative white voters keeping their cards close to their chests, the outcome is uncertain.
In a weekend national radio address Obama said: “We have a righteous wind at our back. If you give me your vote on Tuesday, we won’t just win this election, we will change this country and the world.”
Tomorrow will be a day of history in America. Voters will elect their first black president if they choose Democrat Obama.
But if they choose Republican veteran McCain, 72, and his running mate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, then the US will have its first female vice-president.
“We’re coming back,” McCain told supporters in the battleground state of Virginia. An opinion poll on Friday showed he had leapt into the lead by the slim margin of one per cent as Republican voters rallied.
“The race is close,” said McCain adviser Mark Salter.
By yesterday, however, a three-day poll showed Obama had a five per cent lead.
A Gallup poll gave Obama a 10 per cent lead while other polls swung wildly between showing McCain three points down and 11 points down.
His running mate Palin hinted at an upset, saying: “We are motivated.
I feel this is the way it’s supposed to be and that November 4 will be very positive.”
McCain’s internal poll strategist Bill McInturff put out an encouraging memo to campaign staff yesterday. He wrote: “All signs say we are headed to an election that may easily be too close to call.”
Prominent Republican politics consultant Ed Rollins fundamentally disagreed. He declared: “It’s over. Obama will have a landslide.”
Speaking of McCain’s chances, former presidential candidate and adviser to three Republican presidents, Pat Buchanan, said: “Prayer is one of the best remedies at this point.”
He also predicted there would be civil war inside the Republican party if it is defeated to the extent that most polls predict.
A record number of Americans are expected to surge into polling stations and could face long queues.
The first indications of how the election is going will come when the polls close in the swing state of Indiana at 5pm (11pm in Britain).
That state is normally a solid Republican conservative heartland but has been leaning towards Obama in recent weeks. If he is ahead when the polls close, it could indicate he is heading for the White House.
Attention veered dangerously from Obama at the weekend, however, to a half-aunt of his who was revealed to be living as an illegal immigrant in a slum on the outskirts of Boston.
Obama became aware only last week that his estranged, late Kenyan father had a half-sister who has been living illegally in the US for four years since the authorities denied her appeal for asylum. He indicated, via his aides, that he would not stop her being deported if that was decreed.
Obama spent the weekend campaigning across a snowy Iowa and into Missouri with his wife Michelle. Today he is in Virginia.
McCain is desperately shoring up support across Colorado and New Mexico but is also trying to swing things his way in the Obama-leaning states of Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.
Actions speak louder than words, if election night plans are anything to go by. Up to one million people, including Obama, are expected to turn out for his official party in a park on Lake Michigan and neighbouring streets in his home town of Chicago.
McCain has hired Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa in his home state capital of Phoenix. It holds only 2,000.
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