1-
The Exclusionary Polls
If you're one of the 20 million Americans who have given up regular landline phone service for a cellphone, you are not being counted in polling.
Consequently, you are also highly likely to be young, urban-dwelling and voting Obama.
2 -
The Ground Game
The Obama campaign, with insight and inspiration from the Dean/2004 campaign and campaign chiefs David Plouffe and David Axelrod, has built for itself the most advanced, nimble and effective political organization in history. Trying to grasp the impact that a voter database more thorough than anything Bush/Rove had in 2004 or 2000, the capability to instantly send an SMS to millions with a single click or an online network/mailing list of millions of potential donors will have on Election Day is difficult, but oh so enticing...
And how about that brilliantly user-friendly voteforchange.com website? Or their instant mudslinging responses? The embrace of Web 2.0 (Flickr, Facebook, Twitter etc.)? Every one of these factors gives Obama an edge not only over Gore/Kerry, but of course, over the McSame campaign too.
3 -
Finally, maybe the biggest elephant in the room: George W. Bush. Do I need to elaborate any further?
The Obama platform not only appeals to progressives and Demcocrats, it appeals to moderates and Republicans more so than in the last two presidential cycles. The American public has been fooled enough times by the Rove Media Machine to forget the truth that surrounds them every second they're not watching TV or surfing the web. Their wallets are lighter. Their jobs are going overseas. Their kids are coming back wounded, with PTSD, or worse from an illegal war. Hurricanes are battering the Southern Coast while federal agencies, stripped of funding, struggle to meet unprecedented crises.
What's the other side chanting all the meanwhile? 'Drill baby drill..' Perhaps most importantly, there is somebody who they can express their frustrations and anger with:
The GOP.
And there is somebody they can punish with something as simple as an X next to Barack Obama/Joe Biden on a ballot:
John McCain.
So don't fret. But don't claim victory prematurely either. We've got 46 days left until this election. And every second counts.