And the winner is?

Election day is right around the corner and although it might seem as though Senator Obama has the upper hand, Senator McCain is rallying support from crucial swing states such as North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The election is still days away but a significant number of people have already cast their ballots in Iowa, North Carolina, New Mexico and Ohio according to data analyzed by the New York Times and has shown that a far larger amount of Democrats then Republicans have been hitting the polls. This information does not reveal who will ultimately win the election with just one-third of voters expected to hit the polls before election day but it does give the indication that people are ready for change.

The results from the 2004 elections of early voting are suprisingly different from this year's. In the past, early voting has traditionally favored Republicans; Bush won Flordia, Colorado, and Nevada in early voting in 2004, but because of younger voters as well as African Africans and Hispanics, the Democratic Party is pulling in the early votes. The dates from early voting differ in every state, therefore, it cannot be determined just how much of an impact early voting will have on the election. The surge of early voters favoring the Democratic Party already shows people embracing a new beginning.

Even though early voting is not a decisive look into who will be the next President of the United States it is a start. Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew center said, "If one candidate has the momentum at an early stage before Election Day, it's going to favor that candidate," he went on to say, "If there's a last minute surge because of some event to the trailing candidate, well, the train has left for an awful lot of people these days."

With data showing an increase in early voting in recent election years, "In 2004, 22 percent of voters cast an early presidential ballot; in 2000, 16 percent voted early; 2008 24 percent expected to vote before Election Day," the Republican Party seems quite calm with the fact the data shows more voters are casting their ballots for Senator Obama. Caleb Hunter, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party said, "A bit of it is culture, our voters like to go to the polls on Election Day. Thats part of their citizenship, filling out the registration, standing in the line, so we focus a lot of our efforts and time and energy on that program."

But it seems that the Republican Party is not as calm as they wish to look. In recent Pennsylvania polls Senator Obama has a double-digit lead, which does not seem out of the ordinary since Pennsylvania has always been a Blue State but Senator McCain has now made three stops to the state on Tuesday, making it his mission to turn voters in his favor. On his first visit to the state, McCain shouted, "We need to win Pennsylvania on Nov. 4, and with your help-with your help-we're going to win!" Even though the state has voted Democratic for the past three years, Republican strategists believe that Senator McCain is appealing to the state's "pro-gun working class voters in the western coal country and to independents and moderates in the swing counties around Philadelphia."

This may be the reason why Philadelphia is "now one of the only major cities in the country where Mr. McCain's advertising campaign is anywhere near as voluminous as that of Mr. Obama's." Senator McCain has reduced his advertising campaigns in states such as Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin.

Senator Obama also has reason to be concerned about his stance in the election due to rising concerns about what each of the candidates will do on the issues of Iran building nuclear weapons, the crash in the stock market and post-Iraq. Each of the candidates have portrayed themsleves in a certain light on how they would ideally handle these situations, for example McCain's "campaign portrays him as an experienced warrior who knows how to win wars," while Obama's campaign portrays him as "a cerebral advocate of patient diplomacy, the antidote to the unilateral excesses of the Bush years, who knows howt o build partnerships without surrendering American interests."

But these portrayls will ultimately change through the course of the next four years whomever the candidate may be. These issues that will affect the country are problems that both candidates have been preparing for throughout these long moths of campaigning but the country is nervous and skeptical about which of the candidates will solve the problems that the Bush Administration has created.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/us/politics/23policy.html?ref=politics
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/us/politics/22pennsylvania.html?ref=politics
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/us/politics/22early.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin