Thaindian News

Washington, Nov 3 (IANS) Democrat Barack Obama appeared poised to make history as America’s first African American president with no sign of late surge for Republican rival John McCain ahead of Tuesday’s election.But with a never say die attitude McCain, a Vietnam war veteran kept plugging in hotly contested states Monday. So did Obama warning supporters not to become complacent by the national polls, which continue to show him leading by varying degrees, aided partly by concerns over the economy.

The race is close in the half dozen or so key states that could decide the election. But media analyses of the polling data say Obama is poised to make history with a decisive victory in Tuesday’s election as state surveys suggest “the Democrat’s path to the requisite 270 electoral votes - and perhaps far beyond - is much easier to navigate than McCain’s.”

As Jeff Greenfield said on the CBS Evening News it is possible to “concoct a scenario where McCain wins all of the battleground states” and “steals Pennsylvania, if that’s the right word, and ekes out an electoral college win-even though he runs several million behind in the popular vote.”

“This is highly unlikely,” though it’s “not impossible,” he added.

Continuing his campaign in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Florida Sunday, McCain targeted the tax plan of his Democratic opponent, who McCain says aims to redistribute wealth and stifle economic growth.

Telling the voters in Scranton, Pennsylvania, they have a choice he said: “Senator Obama is running to be re-distributionist in chief. I’m running to be commander in chief.”

Obama campaigned Sunday in major cities in the key Midwestern state of Ohio, which has backed the winning candidate in each of the last 11 presidential races. Public opinion surveys show a tight race in Ohio. Most give Obama a narrow lead in the state with 20 electoral votes.

In Cleveland, Ohio, Obama urged his supporters Sunday to be sure they cast their ballots. “At this defining moment in history, all of you can give this country the change we need, and it starts right here in Ohio,” he said. “It starts right here in Cleveland.”

The Democrat focused on the economy and the anxiety that many Americans feel because of the nation’s financial crisis. Obama says his tax plan would offer relief to nearly all US workers and small business owners.

As Obama and McCain near the end of a nearly two year campaign, the Democrats and Republicans alike are mobilising supporters in a massive get-out-the-vote drive in more than a dozen battleground states with millions of telephone calls, mailings and door-knockings in a frenzied, fitting climax to a record-shattering $1 billion campaign.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis says the key states of Ohio, Florida and Virginia, which voted Republican in 2004, are still in play. Speaking on the Fox News Sunday programme, Davis said McCain made a comeback in his fight for his party’s nomination, and is doing it again.

“He has been counted out before and won these kinds of states,” Davis said.

“And we are in the process of winning them right now.”

On the same programme, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Democrats are focusing their final efforts on voters who have not made up their minds. “We are just trying to turn out every single supporter we have so we have historic turn-out on Tuesday.”