A Simple Prediction
a bold proclamation on Election Day
2008-11-04
By Monroe Anderson

At the risk of ending up with egg on my face and having to eat crow come tomorrow morning, allow me to go out on a limb and make this prediction: This time, it won't be close.  Barack Obama's margin of victory is going to be so wide that the GOP won't be able to steal the election.

To make myself perfectly clear, can you spell l-a-n-d-s-l-i-d-e?

That's what I see coming and that's what the Republicans no less deserve.

In one national opinion poll after the next, from last week to last night, Obama has enjoyed somewhere between a double-digit to a high single-digit lead over John McCain. The O-Man also had an edge in six of the eight battleground states.

The advantage to Team Obama doesn't stop there.  More than 153 million Americans, a record, have registered to vote with about 10 percent being newbies most anxious for a change. You've seen, maybe even waited in, those long lines of early voters in state after state, night after night, as seen on TV. Nearly a third of the Americans registered to vote have already been there and done that, giving Obama a 20 percent advantage even before the polls opened this morning.

But McCain and the gang would like to have you believe that all the polls are wrong; that the Mavericks have better than a chance of drawing an inside straight for ending up with the winning hand. "They may not know it, but the Mac is back," McCain has taken to boasting in his final-hour rallies.

Believe not what they say, but what they don't do.  The Republicans have not been campaigning in Obama country because they've been working overtime in defending their own turf. Since the credit crisis hit and the stock market did a belly flop, McCain and Sarah Palin have been forced to campaign in the states that George Bush owned in 2000 and 2004.

But eight years of Bush have proven to be eight years too many.  After lying about the weapons of mass destruction, mishandling the New Orleans rescue after Hurricane Katrina and driving America to the poor house, the president has thoroughly ruined the Republican brand.

There are scores of other reasons why any politician with an R at the front of his party's name is wearing a scarlet letter.  But, I'll just tick off three color-coded terror alerts for McPalin and the rest of the GOP.

*Black pride. The enthusiasm among African American voters alone may help turn some red states blue. In North Carolina, for instance, half of the state's registered African American voters have already cast their ballots.

*Brown anger. The incessant rants against illegal immigration by the rabid right's pet radio hosts, Rush Limbaugh, Lara Inghram et al have infuriated Americans of Mexican descent—seventy-five percent of their votes will be cast for the black man.

*White fear. The hockey mom from nowhere may have ginned up McCain's presidential prospects in early September, but by late October Gov. Palin was a total drag on the ticket. Once she'd been exposed as the pitbull who was all bark with no intellectual bite, true blue white American patriots shuddered at the thought of her possibly having her hand on the nuclear trigger.

That's why I'm predicting an Obama blowout--with one not-so-minor caveat: For those of you who haven't voted yet, it's up to you. If you don't go out to vote and encourage all your family members and friends to do the same, by Wednesday you'll find me plunging off the end of a broken limb, gagging on a nasty breakfast of raw egg and cold crow.

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Check out his blog at monroeanderson.typepad.com