Obama in command as US voting day looms

Barack Obama stood on the threshold of history Monday as polls gave the Democrat a sharp edge over John McCain on the last day of campaigning for the most dramatic presidential vote in a generation.

But McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, was adamant he would confound the pollsters to stage a shock comeback and wrench victory from the African-American Obama’s grasp on Tuesday.

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 Monday 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 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 midnight rally in Miami.

“They may not know it, but the Mac is back! And we’re going to win this election,” he added, to deafening cheers.

The Republican was to launch a frenetic dash through at least seven states on the marathon campaign’s final day. Obama was to blitz through Florida, North Carolina and Virginia bidding to storm Republican bastions and turn them over to his side.

On stage in Cleveland, Ohio, Sunday evening after a rousing set from rocker Bruce Springsteen, Obama confessed his delight to be rejoined on the trail by his wife Michelle and two young daughters.

“Everything looks a little better,” he told 80,000 supporters at a rally in drenching rain in Ohio on Sunday. “Everybody’s got a smile on their face,” he said. “You start thinking that maybe we might be able to win an election on November 4.”

Obama lacerated McCain on the stricken US economy and said his rival’s policies would extend President George W Bush’s legacy of financial crisis and “war without end” in Iraq, while neglecting resurgent militancy in Afghanistan.

McCain also attacked his rival on the economy, in his own Wall Street Journal article. “Senator Obama wants to raise taxes and restrict trade,” he charged. “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 Monday gave Obama a yawning lead of 11 points — 55 percent 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 in Gallup’s traditional likely voter model to overcome his deficit to Obama,” the polling organisation said.

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

Obama leads also in the battleground states where the election will be won and lost, including in states such as Virginia and North Carolina that have not backed a Democratic hopeful in decades.

Source: AFP