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Enlarge textI remember the roadside snow in
Well-wishers congratulate President-elect Barack Obama on a 24-foot long message board in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington (Getty)
A day later my cameraman and I watched Barack Obama give his victory speech after the upset victory in the Iowa caucuses. His wife Michelle stood at his side, and his girls were on stage also. They looked dazzling, young, vital.
topStanding behind bullet-proof, bomb-proof (and one hopes, hubris-proof) glass on the night that he was able to finally and convincingly make the argument both to Americans - and the world - that US had changed, Barack Obama looked appealingly frail.
Barack Obama's historic victory left his supporters jubliant - but he has high expectations to live up to
The atmosphere in Grant Park was lightly charged.
I'd like to say that people were walking around weeping, that it was a weighty feeling, but mostly people felt happy.
They felt - to use a lovely antipodean phrase - nice. That’s one of Barack Obama's gifts.
But history was all around us.
I don't mean the grand fracture kind of history that is the stuff of news bulletins, but the kind that lives and weighs on the lives of people every day.
American downtown areas seem just a little ridiculous at the weekends, or at night. The cars have migrated to the suburbs and exurbs, taking their office-working cargo with them.
Obama - and Democrats generally - appeal to younger voters, but may have trouble getting them to polling stations
The tourists pour in, wandering around, dazed, taking photos of everything.
The tourists in Chicago right now are news crews from all over the world. You can tell them by their weird clothes, their wide eyed looks, their funny accents.
I'd had the notion to show up at Obama's Illinois headquarters, and just see what was going on. I walked in the front door, and there were three guys like me, standing around waiting to be admitted to the phone bank.
Breaking up is hard to do
With almost four days to go before election day, a sense of lassitude and fatigue has stolen into many Americans watching the campaign, and perhaps the campaigners themselves.
Barack Obama may be getting into the Halloween spirit, but he's not celebrating just yet
On the stump, John McCain sounds more than his 72 years, and worn out.
And who can blame him? Having survived the Hanoi Hilton - and the US Senate - it looks as if he's about to be massacred in a presidential election.
Barack Obama’s self-suppression attempts NOT to look as if he’s going to cream it, (remember, just a year ago, almost no one gave him a snowball’s chance in hell) are enervating for observers.
With just over a week before a closing ceremony that will be either held in Chicago or Phoenix (the latter less likely than the former), four scenarios suggest themselves as the end-game for this extended electoral Olympics:
Barack Obama's election race - a long-distance event - is now entering its final lap
The Marathon
Barack Obama continues to grind down John McCain. The race tightens, but the Republican ticket, split by dissension and competing messages, stumbles its way to the finish line like a drunk seeking that last taxi on Saturday morning: penniless, and short of ideas.
Obama, on the other hand, is so rich in campaign contributions, he’s able to buy advertising space on John McCain’s jet.
Racing on race in Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia, once so reliably Republican that the last Democrat to win it - Lyndon Baines Johnson - essentially did so by scaring everyone that the other guy was going to blow up the world, is now inclining to Barack Obama.
Obama is busy reaching out to voters, but the colour of his skin may mean some will not support him.
In some polls, the lead is as much as ten points. Democrats are fired up. People are pouring into the state, some from as far away as Britain.
I spoke with Victoria Barr, a student from Oxford, who has paid to come over to Charlottesville and volunteer, because she felt something historic was happening.
Something historic is happening, but will it be historically significant?
Powell-ing around with Obama
In the US, you can only get away with mispronouncing the ex-Secretary of State's first name once. The looks of bland incomprehension, then amusement, will be sufficient to send the lesson home. What Antipodeans call 'collin', Americans utter as something sounds a lot like 'colon'.
Despite his recent attempt at hip-hop, Colin Powell's endorsement is more likely to boost Barack Obama's standing with older voters
Cue much schoolboyish tittering, but it's also instructive to bring along a little stupidity when approaching the idea of semi-celebrity endorsements.
What does Colin Powell’s endorsement furnish for Obama, that, say Paris Hilton's doesn't?
Indulge me here. Obama needs the youth vote like he needs a hole in the head. He has bagloads of youth, urbanity, brains and all those other qualities that make country folk squeamish.
Poor John McCain! In winning the debate, he lost the polls. The CNN post debate survey, admittedly skewed with Democrats, handed him a loss by a thumping 27 points. This factoid, without the caveat of 'oops, sorry, lots of Democrats in that one' has been re-broadcast all day. Perception becomes the reality.
John McCain is urging voters not to write him off just yet - despite the fact he trails rival Barack Obama in almost every poll.
Let’s start with reality. Or what I like to call reality. McCain won last night. By about ten minutes into the second hour, Obama was beginning to make the classic Obama-tells of not wanting to be there. His answers were swelling into paragraphs. His bottom lip was dropping. He sounded flat.
McCain on the other hand, looked very pleased with himself. He found a narrative to sex up what are basically old-hat Republican economic policies.
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About this Blog
As the race for the White House heats up blogger and political commentator Tim Wilson takes a sideways look at life on the campaign trail.
Tim Wilson Tim Wilson is the US correspondent for Television New Zealand, for which he writes a blog. His work has also been published in the New York Times, the Guardian and on Newsweek.com
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