Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

This time it appears that it is the Democrats who with large numbers of smaller citizen contributions, combined with strong motivation in a year that Republicans are increasingly hiding their identities, have a considerably stronger ground game.  It is Democrats who appear to possess that final important touch, the sale's close by a strong Election Day push.

There is mounting Republican concern over South Carolina, also initially conceded to be a red McCain state.  The large numbers of committed early voters, many of them African Americans determined to vote for Obama and prevent any type of late Republican shenanigans of the type employed in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, have endured long lines to cast votes.

Chuck Todd of NBC noted today in his final morning analysis prior to Election Day that an intense early voting effort has occurred in South Carolina.  Todd added that should this earlier assumed red state remain in the undecided column for a lengthy period Tuesday night that this will augur well for Barack Obama and bode negatively for John McCain.

As for Arizona, the Obama full court press is understandable in a region where change appears the order of the day and a voter transformation appears to be in progress.

Obama continues to hold reasonably solid polling leads in the important states of Colorado and New Mexico, where a new voting pattern wave could be emerging that will reverberate into the future.  Nevada is a state of change where Obama has lately held leads.  Meanwhile Montana as well as neighboring North Dakota have suddenly popped into the undecided category.

It would be truly symbolic if John McCain's own state delivered an announcement to its home state candidate that it too has become an agent of change in what is rapidly emerging as a solid progressive west, given the already strong national trend for Democrats in California, Oregon and Washington.