Obama looks to be on course for victory

Alexander Cockburn writes at 1.30am: Every journalist and professional politico in America has etched in their mind the famous news photo of a grinning Harry Truman holding up the newspaper front-page headline 'Dewey Wins'.

This was in 1948, when Truman came from behind in the biggest post-war shocker to date. So though there's not a pundit in America who hasn’t already pre-baked tumid acclamations for Obama's historic victory, the new page that has now opened, the messy virtues of democracy, etc, caution ruled for the first part of Election Day itself.

Too fresh in the minds of many Democrats is the pain of the Bush-Kerry turnaround in 2004, when Bob Shrum, Kerry's speech writer, gazed complacently on the early results, turned to Kerry and said, "May I be the first to call you Mr President." And, as it turned out, almost the last.

The exit polls which started rolling in at 5pm east coast time seemed to show that there was indeed a spread between the final telephone polls, and whom the voters claimed to have favored in the polling booths.

There was a difference in McCain's favor of some 1 to 2 percentage point, suggesting that the infamous 'Bradley effect' has been a factor. What white voters said they were going to do (vote for Obama) has been contradicted by what they finally did.

But despite this, the exit polls also showed a big tilt to Obama and this was buttressed by reports of huge turn-outs . "A tsunami," was the wan assessment of a GOP campaign chairman from North Carolina.

Then, at around 8pm east coast time ( 1am British time) came the first, sensational call: based on exit polls, NBC said Obama will win Pennsylvania, a state on which McCain had staked all, spending much of the last month there.

With Pennsylvania under his belt, Obama has only to prise loose a couple more Red States - Colorado, Indiana, or New Mexico - to add to the states he has in the bag, and it's all over. The top tier of Obama's advisers are no doubt far too prudent to echo Bob Shrum, but the urge must be welling up in them.

FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 5, 2008