Not Over Til It’s Over

By Dr. Aslam Abdullah, TMO Editor-in-chief

Regardless of the lead the Obama-Biden ticket has built up, the election is not over until it is finally over. Everything possible is being used to distract the voters from real issues, especially by the Republican campaign.

McCain had promised a clean campaign. Far from that, the campaign for the presidency has turned into a campaign against Obama. A week before the election, the McCain campaign reintroduced the Jeremiah Wright issue. It also highlighted Obama’s presence in a gathering organized by Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Palestinian origin at the University of Chicago.

The McCain campaign also accused Obama of being a socialist, and talked about his so-called “palling around with” terrorists, and it brought up his proposal to talk with the Iranian leadership without pre-conditions.

The American people wanted to hear about the economy, health care, education, national security and foreign policy. At least in eight red states where McCain is hoping to retain a Republican victory, people do not appear to be buying into his campaign tricks.

In Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Virginia, Colorado and Florida, a great majority of voters seem to be in favor of Obama.

— Voters in all eight states gave Obama the highest marks on whom they trust to fix the economy and improve health care.

—Even on the question of “who would make the right decision about national security,” typically a strong suit for McCain, Obama holds a slight lead in Nevada and is running even against his GOP rival in Colorado, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

—By large margins, voters in each of the states consider Obama the likely winner Tuesday.

—Voters in each state believe McCain has run a far more negative campaign.

The negative campaign is primarily designed to influence voters in these eight states. The campaign hopes that by raising doubts about Obama’s character they might persuade straying Republicans to return to the party. It might not be a surprise to anyone if the campaign uses the race card in the closing hours, to impact the voters’ decision.

However, what one must realize is that elections are not won or lost through rallies. They are decided on the basis of votes cast by people. The candidate that has a well-organized electoral team to bring the voters out on election day usually carries the election. McCain is trying to enthuse the right wing Christian evangelicals to use their church infrastructure to persuade voters to vote. In some states, these outfits are mobilizing resources at the grass roots level. Obama, on the other hand, is relying on his 1.5 million strong volunteer team to gear up for election day.

The Republicans tried desperately to make Islam and Muslims an election issue by projecting onto Obama a hidden Muslim connection.  The failure of this strategy is evident despite, the fact that in some right wing Evangelical groups it still persists. In perhaps most evangelical churches, the idea of Islam as anathema to Christianity is an unchallenged assumption which justifies unprecedented hate-mongering by Christian leaders and which lays the groundwork for fascist Jews as well who, for instance, are now trying to spread their ideology of hate by spreading the movie Obsession.

Elections, despite polling, are unpredictable, especially in an historic election such as this one.  Therefore it is very important for us to vote.

Vote your heart on election day–that is the policy that will give you satisfaction whatever happens in the next four years.

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