I've been part of some elections in the past decade myself and I've seen,read and heard a lot about almost every US presidential election in history and never have I seen such a favorable environment for a national candidate.
A bad economy has always favored democrats and it's hardly been as bad as it looks right now ,the incumbent president is the most unpopular in US history,the opposition is weak and keeps making strategic mistakes almost every day, the registration numbers overwhelmingly favor the dems.Yet Obama is losing among white voters overall in some polls and overall he leads by 4-6 points ,mostly because of his strong support among minorities.I know he is the first half black candidate and that might explain some of it but the fact there is still a chance( even though remote by now) for McCain to win says a lot about why the US is in such deep trouble.
I travel a lot around the world and everytime I discuss US politics with intelligent folks,the question that keeps coming up is: How on earth is it possible that the election is close ? I usually respond with questions: how on earth is it possible for a bunch of people to lie an entire country into a war ? how on earth was it possible for the US to elect and even reelect someone incompetent like Bush ? Why on earth there hasn't been any real investigation about 9/11 ? why is Foxnews the most watched cable News channel in the US ?how is it possible that a president got impeached over an affair and noone wants to impeach another president guilty of criminal activities?
Obama is probably gonna get elected anyway but change is unlikely to come anytime soon if the divide between conservatives and liberals keeps growing ,if the media keeps spreading propaganda instead of news and if the only thing we fight about( both liberals and conservatives) is our party's interests .