Obama's Surging Campaign Now Leads Electoral Vote By 369-169

The economic bad news just keeps translating into more and more bad news for the McCain Campaign which has wasted days with mean-spirited absurd conspiracy theory attacks on Senator Obama while the Obama Campaign has gained critical ground with independent voters and trust over the pressing economic issues which have been dominating the top concerns of voters. The result is that the Obama Campaign now leads the McCain effort by a huge 369-169 advantage according to Scott Elliot's reputable ELECTION PROJECTION political analysis site.

ELECTION PROJECTION also now views Obama as leading McCain by 53.15 to 44.85% in popular vote projections. A new CBS poll has things even worse with Obama surging to a 14 point lead of 53 to 39% over McCain.

John McCain has one last chance to gain ground in tonight's critical last debate performance. However, so far the McCain-Palin ticket has lost the last three debates according to most public polling data. Tonight's event may be the last hurrah for John McCain, and his last good chance to present himself to a wider national audience before his election hopes tank and he enters the history books as the biggest GOP loser since Barry Goldwater's crushing loss in 1964. Ironically, McCain has always compared himself to Goldwater, both being Arizona GOP conservatives who seemed out of step with the current political climate, and potentially both historic big losers.

If the Obama popular vote advantage holds up to current projection levels, Obama could pull along many states formerly carried by George Bush in 2000 and 2004, including Florida, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Missouri, Nevada and Colorado as well as the states that went from Gore to Bush in 2004, which includes Iowa and New Mexico. Some states such as Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio often are weather-vane states that vote with the winning candidate. In fact, it is usually Ohio that determines the winner in every election since 1964. JFK's loss in 1960 was the last time this state did not vote with the winning candidate.

Obama could pull along many Democratic candidates for the senate and congress as well and have a strong working majority for at least until the 2010 midterm elections to rebound the economy and restore America's tarnished international image. It will also give the GOP some time to soul-search for a new direction to their party after bringing economic disaster to the nation with economics that didn't work and a foreign policy that bogged the U.S. down in the Iraq War mess.

The Democrats may be on the verge of their best opportunity to prove themselves as the party in clear power since FDR and the Democrats gained a big win to help the nation recover from the Hoover-Republican Great Depression of the 1930's. This becomes an awesome responsibilty for the Democrats to offer some real results and leaves the Republicans on the sidelines to develop some new leadership and new direction as the party outside of the main Washington power circles.

The real long-term problem is that voters often become complacent with economic prosperity and take it for granted during extended periods of economic growth. The economy was very strong during the Clinton years after it declined sharply during the first Bush Administration, however many voters abandoned Al Gore's efforts to continue that success due to the personal conduct disgust with Bill Clinton, only resulting in the narrow 2000 election win by the younger Bush and years of lost jobs to outsourcing, war and now a serious worldwide economic downturn largely blamed on the lack of economic direction by the Bush Administration for the U.S. George Bush was incidentally the first American president with an MBA degree, yet only once the economy hit critical skids and the stock market lost huge amounts of dollars did the Bush Administration take emergency measures to prevent more bank and Wall Street collapses.

So far this election looks like it will be a weather-vane for the voters to change direction once again and restore a Democratic Administration to power that can once again strengthen the economy and act as a serious repudiation of the failed Republican policies that let the American public down so badly.

Pensively, comic Bill Maher has even joked about the bad state of the economy during the closing days of the Bush Administration as being his last big screw-up on the way out and leaving the White House burning down in flames behind him on the way out. That's a big problem for John McCain to overcome and a large reason why he currently trails so badly in the latest polls and may headed towards a loss of historic proportions.