It's Not Over Yet

So says pollster John Zogby who thinks this election could come down to the final weekend:

The presidential race is still too close to call and could come down to the very last weekend before voters decide if they like or distrust Barack Obama, a national pollster predicts.

“I don’t think Obama has closed the deal yet,” pollster John Zogby told the Herald yesterday.

Zogby’s latest poll, released yesterday in conjunction with C-Span and Reuters, shows Obama and John McCain in a statistical dead heat, with the Illinois Democrat up 48-45 percent.

Zogby said the race mirrors the 1980 election, when voters didn’t embrace Ronald Reagan over then-President Jimmy Carter until just days before the election.

“The Sunday before the election the dam burst,” Zogby said of the 1980 tilt. “That’s when voters determined they were comfortable with Reagan.”

Now voters are wrestling with two senators with opposite resumes - Obama, at 47, the unknown, and the established 72-year-old McCain.

Zogby said he’s still hearing from moderates and non-partisan voters - what he calls “the big middle” - who are still shopping for a candidate.

“It still can break one way or the other,” Zogby says.

I've thought all along that this election would not be a choice between McCain and Obama, but a referendum on whether Obama would be acceptable as president. That's why the ongoing character attacks are still important given the number of voters who just haven't been paying attention up until now.

Although Democrats put on a good show of concern and worry over the state of the economy, it's clear they are reveling in the economic pain now hitting Americans because they believe it will deliver a big win - even a landslide - for Obama...unless:

“Barring a terrorist attack,” said (Dem strategist) Maslin, “in the face of what’s happened to the United States economy, the world economy, in the last two weeks how does this trend reverse itself?”

That's an interesting statement. Why would a terrorist attack put an end to Obama's landlide? Is that not an admission that voters don't trust Dems when it comes to handling terrorism and don't believe they would be sufficiently tough in the face of a devastating attack?

I'm not sure that's the message the Dem party wants to be sending out.