They fear that the handwriting was on the wall with the heavy Democratic Party registration coupled with gigantic voter turnouts.

The response by the perpetual deniers of the Republican Right is in current evidence as the future scripts of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are being written.

Fox News is devoting huge attention to allegations that Black Panther members are standing with nightsticks at one Philadelphia voting precinct and seeking to intimidate white voters they find suspicious.  In the clip I viewed there was not one shred of video evidence revealing anyone standing outside the precinct intimidating anyone.

Meanwhile World Net Daily and Free Republic are joining the mounting chorus of shrieks that fraud is in the air.  One report exists of two voters being "challenged" in North Dakota.

The Gergen sentiment has been stated by most other election analysts.  Given the ebb and flow of the race, if Obama can carry the Old Dominion he should achieve victory.    

There are two reasons to cast discerning eyes, the results of the 2008 election and the shaping process in the evolution of a transformation era of politics were the old order will be supplanting by elements of change providing the country with the opportunity for a new direction.

Indiana votes from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., but here a caveat must be rendered, as it must with Virginia and other key states.  Already it appears that the deadline might be extended an hour to 7 p.m. and after that, it will be anybody's guess what happens.

There have been such huge and successful registration efforts in both Indiana and Virginia that election officials, even without Republican dirty trick activities, pressures and problems are created.  

E. J. Dionne Jr.'s column in the Seattle Times November 1 datelined from Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, told of a first-time voter and how she looked at the 2008 election.  It was most interesting to find out what mattered most to this individual.  This Washington Post Writers Group columnist wrote:

"Emily Daywalt decided to go to the first political rally of her life because she wanted to cheer Sarah Palin, who was here a few days ago to inspire the faithful.  Daywalt said she likes it that Palin `hunts and she believes in God and that she is a strong, independent woman.'"

But it was the economic philosophy that caught Daywalt's attention.  Dionne explained:

"'The decline in our GDP didn't happen by accident,' Obama said.  `It is a direct result of the Bush administration's trickle-down.  Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years.'"

One of the most interesting stories in the Los Angeles Times this morning one day prior to Election Day is the interesting pattern of activity emerging in John McCain's home state.

With a hoarse, tired looking McCain striving to defeat the seemingly inevitable force of American political history to achieve one more victory for the Bush-Cheney corporate Republican right in the face of a voter transformation, right in his own backyard of Arizona Democrats are hard at work to win a state that had been earlier ceded to the Arizonan.

The Times story reveals that the Democratic state chairman has developed an imaginative eleventh hour fundraising method to secure contributions for specific purposes related to the amount of the donation.  

One contribution involves ability to deploy individuals to make a specified number of calls; another involves feeding a team of workers tapped in for eight hour shifts; yet another involves purchase of gas to drive voters to the polls.

When progressive political scientist Ruy Teixeira wrote "The Emerging Democratic Majority" it presented trending signs that interested observers should anticipate to determine if the moment was at hand.

Teixeira's prediction for the opening decade of the New Millennium was comparable to what conservative political analyst Kevin Phillips had prophesied in the opposite direction.  It is significant that Phillips in the closing decade of the twentieth century criticized the new wave of right wing Republicanism manifesting under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, issuing a prediction dovetailing with that of Teixeira.

On Teixeira's website The Democratic Strategist the term purple states is employed to refer to the emergent opportunities for Democrats in such states as Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada and others.

The most obvious manifestation that America is in the midst of a transformative election comparable to 1932 and the victory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ushering in his New Deal, is that  Republicans are stymied and shifting messages in an effort to find a winning strategy.

The Campaign for America's Future published its positive message in the New York Times October 28.

I am quoting some power-packed statements that accurately depict who we are and how we can prosper once again.  It represents a blueprint of how we can restore America as a model of freedom to become a shining light once more to the dark corners of the world amid despair, launching a search for illumination.

The Campaign for America's Future is based at 1845 K Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20006.  The organization's website is at www.ourfuture.org.  This is some of what America's Future's ad in the New York Times had to say:

"Remember who we are.

An interview of Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina by Joe Scarborough on his early show this week demonstrated how the 2008 presidential election has been proceeding.

While the official date of the election is November 4, it is ongoing with a number of states holding early voting, and herein lies the big story that Clyburn, an African American congressman, was talking about.

South Carolina was considered one of those "don't bother touching it, it is in the red category" decisions.  To even make an attempt was throwing good money after bad and wasting other opportunities in the process.

Clyburn's illuminating commentary revealed a political story unraveling that has been revealed in Atlanta and outlaying areas as well.  The story concerns African Americans as well as other voters standing in lines that typically extend to 7 and 8 hours and in some instances encompassed a staggering 12-hour figure.

What a team to parade around with, the brewery distribution heiress and the Bush voting clone.

Just another soccer mom and your average Joe, along with the ideal couple (a man who divorced his wife after she was disabled in an accident, and the blonde brewery heiress to a $100 million fortune).

Just the type of average people that the average American can relate to naturally.

The average soccer mom-governor, with five kids who enjoys moose hunting, kill and cook expeditions.  All this between loyally appointing one's friends to vital Alaskan government positions.  After all, what are friends for?  

When a political party sinks in a quicksand there are signs indicating that the ultimate act is at hand.

One familiar sign, similar to the uncle heading toward oblivion in the attic, is that of denial over what is happening, and what is obvious to others.  The McCain Ohio rally yesterday was symbolic with John McCain looking and sounding totally removed from reality as, amid more scheduling chaos, he was unaware that his intended co-star of the day was nowhere to be seen:

"Joe the Plumber, Joe, where are you, Joe?"

When Joe was nowhere to be found a startled McCain adlibbed, "You're all Joe the Plumber!"

The October 30 New York Times international page article by Sam Dagher dated from Baghdad declares:

"The Iraqi government demanded changes on Wednesday to the long-delayed security pact with the United States.  The amendments would ban American troops from using Iraqi territory to carry out attacks on other countries, further limit when the troops would have immunity from Iraqi laws and allow inspection of American arms shipments.

"The amendments come just days after the United States sent American commandos over the border into Syria in what was by far the boldest attack there by special operations forces in the five years since the United States invaded Iraq.  There have been increasing signs of discontent among powerful Iraqi political parties with the agreement, including some that had negated the draft pact."

Perhaps American negotiators are unaware of the fact that Baghdad had been attacked by the Roman Empire centuries before.  That illustrates the refusal of Baghdad to be overrun by the powerful Roman Empire and refusal to surrender.  They burned everything and the Romans fled back to Rome, defeated for the first time.
 

The name calling from the McCain camp has reached fever pitch as more polls are released showing his damaged posture while we march toward Tuesday's climactic presidential election.

A study of the electoral college map is staggering in terms of current trends.  A current Arizona State University shows that McCain with a scant 2-point edge in his own state, one that had been conceded to him from the outset.

Meanwhile in the south McCain has more than Virginia and North Carolina to be worried  about as Georgia looms interestingly close, sparked by a large early voting turnout by African Americans.  Even in a stalwart Republican state such as Mississippi the numbers have narrowed.

So what does McCain do as he becomes increasingly desperate?  He dusts off an ancient right wing Republican scare tactic that has pushed beyond the re-dristibutionist charge to accusations of socialism.  McCain's "I'll say anything" Caribou Barbie running mate has upped the ante by linking Barack Obama to Marxism.

Now that the U.S.A. has discovered that only Mexico and Turkey had poverty rates higher than the 30-country study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, what if anything will be done to help the U.S. poor obtain health care?

Politicians, during campaigns, loudly proclaim "The U.S.A. is the greatest nation on earth and the richest."

With the largest, almost incomprehensible national debt in the world, exceeding all prior national debts combined since the U.S. was founded, recent political rants have avoided claiming the U.S.A. to be the richest nation in the world!  However, the persistent claim to greatness has been much used in the current election campaigns (rest assured).

Mary Reynolds-Gilmore of Northport, N.Y. in her October 24 Letter to the Editors of the New York Times hit the problem of U.S. health care precisely, stating:

Figure it as a manifestation of human psychology.  About the time that you feel obliged to name your campaign bus the "straight talk express" figure on fraud being an active agent in that individual's operating process.

From the time that "Joe the Plumber" surged on the scene many of us were extremely skeptical.  

One got the feeling from watching Barack Obama with patient courtesy responding to the inquiry from a man who, as it turned out, is not a licensed plumber, is not in a position to buy his employer's business, would not be anywhere close to the threshold of any federal tax hike even if he did, has donated campaign money to McCain and has a federal tax lien against him, that the alleged "man on the street" was a plant.

The body language was unconvincing.  Joe seemed tenuous and his performance appeared stagy as in managed.  After monopolizing a significant amount of Obama's time, an impatient hush could be heard coming over the group of Obama supporters.  One got the distinct feeling that many were skeptical of Joe.

Mary Beth Sheridan of the Washington Post writing an article appearing in the Seattle Times October 28 and datelined from Baghdad stated the following:

"A deal to authorize the presence of American forces in Iraq beyond 2008 is forcing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to choose between two influential powers in this country, the United States and Iran.

"U.S. officials had hoped Iraq would quickly approve the accord which would give American troops legal authority to remain in Iraq after December 31, when the mandate from the United Nations expires.  But Iraqi political leaders have balked, in a sign that American political capital is waning as Iraq grows.

"'Maliki is in a dilemma.  He cannot antagonize the Americans,' said Ghassan al-Attiyah, a prominent Iraqi intellectual and political analyst based at the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy in London.

The Republican right proceeds at a blinding speed to commit political suicide.

During an era when things so frequently went their way within the national political power structure, aided in no small part by a mainstream media that so often looked the other way or approved of atrocious electioneering and policymaking, right wing Republicans began to believe that power should be theirs, particularly the presidency, for the eternal taking.

How furious they became and how quickly already loose springs shattered from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly when Bill Clinton had the rank audacity to not only run for president, but actually win it twice.  He countered the relentless bully machine with an effective instrument of his own in 1992 called the rapid response team, which met smear attacks with carefully crafted rebuttals.

McCain, after achieving the 2008 Republican nomination by pleasing the right by proudly asserting that he had voted with George Bush "90 percent of the time" ended up cornered by his own strategy when a differently structured general election beckoned.