Candidates Make Their Final Push on Reshaped Map
Senators John McCain and Barack Obama began their final push for the White House on Saturday across an electoral map markedly different from four years ago, evidence of Mr. Obama’s success at putting new states into contention and limiting Mr. McCain’s options in the final hours.
Mr. Obama was using the last days of the contest to make incursions into Republican territory, campaigning Saturday in three states — Colorado, Missouri and Nevada — that President Bush won relatively comfortably in 2004. In what seemed as much a symbolic tweak as a real challenge, Mr. Obama bought advertising time in Arizona, Mr. McCain’s home state.
Mr. McCain started the day in Virginia, a once-solidly Republican state that Democrats now feel is within their grasp. But he then turned his attention to two states that voted Democratic in 2004 — Pennsylvania and New Hampshire — reflecting what his aides said was polling in both states that suggested the race was tightening.
Still, his decision to spend some of his time in the final hours on Democratic turf signaled that Mr. McCain had concluded that his chances of winning with the same lineup of states that put Mr. Bush into the White House was diminishing. Mr. McCain’s hopes appear to rest in large part on his ability to pick up electoral votes from states that Senator John Kerry won for the Democrats four years ago.
Across the country, there was abundant evidence of just how much excitement the contest had stirred: In Colorado, 46 percent of the electorate has already voted in that state’s early voting program. Voters in states like Missouri, Montana, North Carolina and Virginia were getting knocks on their doors, telephone calls and leaflets slipped under their windshield wipers.
Sheepish, Proud or Set to Flip a Coin, They’re Still Undecided
WASHINGTON — Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have stood (or sat) for 36 debates, endured thousands of interviews, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertisements and the better part of two years trying to convince voters that they are worthy of the presidency, or at least a vote.
But with only days left until Election Day, a small cluster of holdouts — 4 percent, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll — are still wrestling with the “Who are you voting for?” question.
Which raises a follow-up: What is up with these people?
“I do not like being an ‘undecided,’ ” said a sheepish Doug Finke, a 66-year-old executive at an international relocation service in Louisville, Ky. “Last time at this point, I definitely was decided. Not this time. I find it unnerving.”
Mr. Finke, a Republican, voted twice for George W. Bush. He describes himself as an economic conservative and said he had been “very impressed” with Senator John McCain. It sure sounds as if Mr. Finke is leaning toward Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican, right?
Not so fast.
“I’m socially more liberal,” Mr. Finke said. “I think Obama is bright and has been very steady in this campaign.” He added that it would be “very exciting for the United States to elect a black president.” Besides, he does not think Mr. McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, would be ready to step into the top job if something happened to Mr. McCain (who, Mr. Finke pointed out, “is pretty old”).
Where does this leave Mr. Finke? “I plan on doing a lot of reading this weekend,” he said.
If the country is divided between red and blue, Mr. Finke resides in a gray state, along with a proud — or embarrassed — corps of undecideds. They are a shrinking cohort of confused, procrastinating, indifferent or just plain indecisive consumers of democracy.
Mr. Finke lives in a red state, Kentucky, with his wife, Shelley, who is also a gray state citizen. She works out of their home, where she helps manage her husband’s second career as a jazz trombonist.
“I tend to be a procrastinator,” said Ms. Finke, 44, who said she operated best with deadlines.
She voted for Mr. Bush twice and describes herself as “a conservative person at heart.” At the beginning of the campaign, she was suspicious of Mr. Obama “because of the whole Hollywood thing,” but she has since warmed to him.
“My opinion of Obama has definitely risen during this campaign,” Ms. Finke said. “And my opinion of McCain has fallen.”http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/us/politics/02undecided.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
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