Americans voting today to set new record

YUVRAJ ACHARYA

CINCINNATI, OHIO, USA, Nov 4 - About 130 million American people are set to cast their vote on Tuesday to break history in their presidential elections.

set a record in the world’s largest democracy either by electing a black president or a woman vice president for the first ...

Pitched battle is expected between Democratic Party candidate, 47-year-oldBarack Obama and Republican 73-year-old war veteran John McCain. There arethree other candidates as well on the ballot but they are hardly watchedby media and the people. Independent Ralph Nader, Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney are also running for the presidency and expected to bag  about four percentage points altogether.

All the opinion polls show Obama, an African-American candidate who has served as US senator for five years and has taught Law in University of

Chicago is taking a lead over Vietnam War veteran McCain but still facing neck-to-neck competition in about half a dozen states.

A nationwide opinion polls conducted by CNN suggests that Barack Obama holds a seven-point lead over John McCain with just two days before the polls. The report released Sunday morning shows that Obama is leading with 53 percent while McCain is training with support of 46 percent likely voters.  Obama has taken lead throughout the last month at least by five percent.

Any candidate needs to win at least 270 electoral college votes in this indirect election.

If Obama, fifth black candidate to win the election for powerful upper house of the US congress, wins the presidential race, he will be first black president of the country. If Republican McCain wins the polls, his running mate (Vice President candidate) Sarah Palin will be the first woman vice president of the country.

For the first time since 1952, none of the incumbent president or vice president is on the fray. Both the presidential candidates are US senators"Obama (Illinois) and McCain (Arizona). Obama’s running mate Joseph Biden is also senator from Delaware and McCain’s running mate Palin in Alaska State’s governor.

After eight years of republican George W. Bush’s rule, the democrats have an advantage over the republicans but some people say there is still some racist feeling among the elder population in some Central American states.

“Race will be the only factor if Obama loses this time,” said 49-year-old Patricia Abughosh who was in a queue for three hours to enter the University of Cincinnati Stadium where Obama was scheduled to address a rally on Sunday. “There will be no black president for America for the next 100 years if such a popular person [Obama] loses the elections, and it will be unfortunate.

But there seems no such racial division in the crowd of about 30,000 people who attended the rally, cheering and shouting slogans for Obama’s victory for almost six and half hours. “It is not the case, we Americans go by the issue, not by race,” said Frank without telling his last name.“I am democrat and vote Obama-Biden.

“I really loved the speech,” another elderly white man, Bill Bockman said.

[Obama’s] line of stopping war responsibly.

Stopping Iraq war immediately and improving economic condition of the country were major issues Obama raised during his address to the rallies in Ohio where he is facing tough battle with his republican rival.

“It's time to stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq while the Iraqi government sits on a huge surplus,” he said. “As President, I will end this war by asking the Iraqi government to step up, and I will finally finish the fight against bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorists.

He said the USA was in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and 760,000 workers have lost their jobs this year alone. He linked this with failed economic policy of George Bush and foreign policy of Vice-president Dick Cheney.

Obama, however, facing tough time defending his tax cuts, a major baton the republicans are holding to project him as a socialist. In most of the rallies in the past three days, republican candidate McCain and his running mate Palin blamed Obama for being wealth distributionist. “Obama’s tax plan will kill jobs. We need an economy that creates job,” said McCain at a rally in Tampa of Florida.

There are other issues as well influencing the voters in individual level.

The candidates differ in a number of issues including abortion, gay rights, healthcare, public schools social security and jobs. Obama wants to give mother the right to choose birth while McCain opposes it. Obama wants to recognize gay marriage while McCain doesn’t see it necessary. Obama wants states effective role in health and education and McCain fevers private sector’s role.

Preliminary result of the people’s choice is expected to come out by

Wednesday as all the ballots are electronic and one third of the people have already cast their votes. 32 states allow early voting without excuse. Only four states will conduct the votes on a single day-Tuesday.

The exact number of the voters is yet to be clear as several states allow registration of the voter’s right on the election day. All the states have their different law for election and there is no independent authority to conduct the polls. The state departments oversee the process in their respective states.