Obama McCain Race Gets Uglier By The Hour

As the clock winds down to election day, with each passing hour the 2008 Presidential campaign seemingly gets more frenzied, angrier and uglier. See this earlier post about the likely outcome after the votes are counted. And visit the links below to read the latest charges, expressions of outrage and warnings about what will happen if one candidate is elected.

There are now to several developments in the closing days of the campaign, as polls continue to show Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama ahead and Republican candidate Sen. John McCain trailing, in most instances outside the margin of error. Both of these developments — not uncoincidentally — are tied in with the state of Pennsylvania.

(1) As McCain’s campaign makes a massive push to win the must-win state of Pennsylvania, a new controversy has broken out due to the release of info about an Obama interview in 2008 when he said he’d bankrupt new coal plants. And the discussion of this in the blogworld is…interesting..Pro-McCain weblogs are having a field day. Here’s the view of this from a Democratic perspective. Could it be enough to tip Pennsylvania? The wild card remains early voting. And how much play it gets in the mainstream media.

(2) The Reverend Wright card — which McCain said both in public and via unnamed sources in so many reports that he would never play — is now being played via ads in Pennsylvania placed by a Republican group and the state’s Republican party. This officially signals the end of any restraint in terms of negative campaigning on the part of McCain supporters. It could and will be argued that its use in this way gives the McCain campaign plausible deniability since it can say “It wasn’t us!” But this is also typical of how in the waning moments of political campaigns one side will throw out what it feels is its toughest shot, figuring if it comes right before the vote the other side won’t be able to neutralize it quickly enough.

What’s at stake? A lot. Some key states such as Virginia are still in play. And here’s one reason why:

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain remain locked in a close race in Virginia, according to the final Mason Dixon Polling & Research Inc. survey.

The poll, conducted for several Virginia newspapers, has Obama drawing 47 percent vs. McCain’s 44 percent. A Mason-Dixon Virginia poll two weeks ago had Obama ahed by 2-points, 47 to 45 percent..

According to the Virginian Pilot, pollster J. Bradford Coker found large numbers of white, undecided voters. Coker said McCain can still carry Virginia if those voters break his way during the final 48-hours of the campaign.

In 2004, many Democratic and progressive websites, pundits and the mainstream media suggested it was nearly a given that Democratic John Kerry was poised to win. Could the same thing be happening this time with Obama? MSNBC’s First Read:

Our new map comes at the same time as the release of a final round of Mason-Dixon polls, and they contain both good news and bad news for the candidates. The numbers: Obama is ahead five points in Colorado (49%-44%), two in Florida (47%-45%), four in Nevada (47%-43%), and three points in Virginia (47%-44%). Meanwhile, McCain is up one in Missouri (47%-46%), three in North Carolina (49%-46%), and two in Ohio (47%-45%). The good news for Obama — and bad news for McCain — is that if Obama holds on to his leads in CO, FL, NV, and VA, he’s going to easily win on Tuesday, racking up well over 300 electoral votes.

But the bad news for Obama — and good news for McCain — is that Obama is below 50% in all of these polls. And if undecideds break decisively for McCain, that’s how he would pull off the upset. But if the 2004 presidential contest taught us anything, it’s that turnout sometimes is more important than undecided voters. In our final NBC/WSJ poll before the 2004 election, Bush held a one-point lead over Kerry, 48%-47%. And there was the assumption that undecideds breaking for the challenger over the incumbent would propel Kerry to victory. But that didn’t happen.

Cartoon by RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch