By Joe Macaron, KUNA,
Washington : In the fading hours of the US presidential race, both campaigns are battling over votes in traditional battleground states but Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s road to the White House seems more plausible and he could be on the verge of a landslide victory.
With unprecedented fundraising, grassroots political structure, and over confident lead in national polls, Obama is playing full court offense in states once considered unlikely to go for Democrats, while the Republican contender John McCain strives to hold on to conservative turf.
The Obama campaign is running political ads over the weekend in Georgia, North Dakota, and even Arizona, the home state of his opponent, where the lead of McCain has shrunk to just 4 points.
The 2008 presidential election goes beyond the traditional battleground states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, since Obama managed to expand the electoral map for Democrats.
Two other options are available for the Senator from Illinois to reach the needed 270 votes out of the 538 Electoral College.
Almost eight traditional Republican states are now showing a tight race, mainly in North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, and Indiana while the Western states of Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, with a total of 19 electoral votes, are now leaning for Obama by an average of six points.
McCain found his voice a bit late in the campaign, after the last presidential debate when he settled on a line of criticism of Obama’s tax plan, which gave him some boost in national polls but seems not enough to pull off an upset so late in the race.
“We believe this race is winnable, and if the trajectory continues, we will surpass the 270 electoral votes needed on election night,” affirmed McCain campaign manager Rick Davis in a conference call. He argued that 18.5 million voters are still undecided out of the 130 million expected to vote by next Tuesday.
The McCain camp is betting that the blue collar voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio, who once endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries, could turn to McCain.
The campaign is also implementing the 72-hour voter turnout strategy, once tapped by President Bush’s political architect Karl Rove, with last minute phone calls and door knocks to ensure high turnout among Republicans, but the only setback for McCain is he does not enjoy the same enthusiasm among conservatives as President Bush did.
This is not the only steep hill McCain has to climb, as he finds himself unable to draw the line with an unpopular incumbent President and his choice for Vice President, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, is energizing the conservative base at the expense of turning off independent voters, who are raising questions about her experience.
McCain stumped with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Ohio, where Obama leads by 6 points, a moderate voice in the Republican Party in an attempt to appeal to independent voters in a must-win state for Republicans while Vice President Dick Cheney endorsed him from Wisconsin to boost his credentials among conservatives in the south.
McCain is wooing two audiences at the same time, which reflect the incoherent message of his campaign.
Meanwhile, Democrats are playing all their cards in Florida where Obama leads by 4 points, dispatching all their political stars to the sunshine state, mainly former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, who lost this state by 537 votes in his presidential bid in 2000.
Obama is focusing the last hours of his campaign on Western states and traditional Republican ones after closing the deal in blue states. The Obama campaign anticipates unprecedented number of new registered voters since early voting ballots over the weekend showed a decided advantage for Democrats.
According to CNN electoral vote estimate, Obama leads by 291 to 160 for McCain, with 87 still up for grab.
The only scenario for McCain to tie Obama is to get all states won by Bush in 2004 including Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia and Florida. But McCain still needs to turn Pennsylvania red to win the presidency and this appears unlikely with Obama leading by 7 percent in polls.
The knockout for McCain could come early in the night next Tuesday if Virginia, a southern state on the east coast, is declared for Obama where he leads by 6 points. Obama will close his campaign in a rally on Monday night in Manassas after over 10 visits to this swing state.
The last Democrat to win Virginia was Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
In many ways, the question seems not whether Obama would win but the size of his victory across geographical and party lines, and whether Democrats can take absolute majority in the Senate, which would be an ultimate blow for Republicans after eight years in power.