I’ve been almost afraid to write anything in the last few days: with nearly every poll pointing towards a blowout of sorts next Tuesday, I didn’t want to jinx it by getting out the party favors too soon. And there is still the possibility that the poll numbers are skewed wrong, or that America’s treacherous racist heart is actually steeled against our historic candidate. But I doubt it. 

Hearing pollster Charlie Cook on Meet the Press this morning kind of sealed the deal for me. Cook, who does a nice job of remaining noncommittal in these races, is from Louisiana which elected Bobby Jindal, a man of Indian descent, last October. Given that state’s history, said Cook, this was about as likely as hitting a hole in one. On the moon. True, Jindal is a right-wing, right-to-life, born-again Republican — but he doesn’t look like most folks in Louisiana. But things were so screwed up there, said Cook, that even old white racists were willing to let some skinny Indian kid run with the ball. 

And that, said Cook, is just where America is at with Obama. The fear that McCain and the GOP counted on didn’t take and without that they have nothing. The Republican candidate himself had just been on the show talking to Tom Brokaw, laughing in the face of polls that put him 10-14% behind, and defending the Palin pick to the death. What they have left is magical thinking, and a belief that failing campaigns are like crashing planes. “Why I’ve been in tougher spots than this…”

Yeah, but we haven’t. 

In all this last-minute hand-wringing you don’t hear much about the president — Bush, remember? But I think credit must be given where credit is due. What I saw after the disastrous response, or lack of, to Hurricane Katrina was a massive case of buyer’s remorse by some of the very same people who voted for GWB the second time. Some of them were members of my wife’s family, who own a newspaper in Washington, Pennsylvania — the same Western PA Jack Murtha was talking about. And who do you think that paper endorsed for President? Rhymes with “Yo mama.”