Happy Halloween!

Happy Haunting! Louis is off to collect candy. No, sorry, off to celebrate his first Halloween. He will be reporting back....

History boy - by Daddy J

So there was me thinking that the so-called "most important election in a generation" was turning out a bit dull. For a couple of weeks now the polls have been suggesting that its all over and Nov 4th looms as a mere formality. It certainly seemed that way yesterday as I stared through the wall of fatigue at CNN and swilled down my umpteenth salt'n'sugar-based meal at the (tiny) airport in Charleston, WV. The only excitement on offer then was the prospect of a brush with a Buddy Holly style death in the twin-prop that was taking us back to Washington on a wintry evening. 

All that changed today with a fascinating interview we did with a black journalist from the Washington Post. After the tape stopped rolling he started talking more frankly as to how he felt about the election as an African American. He pointed out that he fully understood why Obama was working so hard on what seemed to me like campaign overkill - the mega-rallies, yet more fund-raising, the half-hour ads - when he's so clearly got his opponent on the ropes. He said that as a black man negotiating the American Establishment you're never confident you've really arrived, you've always got to try twice as hard as the next (white) guy and you're always watching your back. 

What worried him most he said - and here's the exciting bit - is that the financial crisis, the unpopularity of Bush, the weakness of McCain's campaign have all conspired to create a situation in which the only thing that could possibly prevent Obama from winning is race. And that makes a McCain win - from the point we are now one week out - potentially devastating. A million people are expected to make their way to Grant Park in Chicago to celebrate an Obama victory according to the mayor (an exaggerated figure of course, but it shows the level of anticipation and there are at least half a million journalists going) - imagine what happens if those crowds are let down at the last minute. There are already dark rumours of civil strife. 

But think of the broader picture too - an Obama win is supposed to send a signal to the world that just a generation on from the civil rights struggle America has finally laid its racial divisions to rest. What does it say if America simply refuses to elect a black man president? And now that McCain has proved to be such a confused and impulsive guy - is he really going to be able to lead a shell-shocked country through the backlash from all that - as well as the two wars and the mother of all recessions? Suddenly its hit me just how historic next Tuesday really is. Maybe Mommy will forgive me just a teensy bit for being in Chicago for her birthday after all.

Louis's Mama's for Obama

Yes, that's right, Louis's Mama's still for Obama despite the cheesy half-hour Obamamercial that just hogged the airwaves on all of the major broadcasters bar one. Seems like it went down well with Barack's disciples though: two minutes after it aired so many Obamaites were trying to log into my.barackobama.com that it crashed the site. (Louis and I were trying to see if we could catch him at a last-minute rally in Virginia.)

And I'm not the only Mama for Obama it seems. Take a peek at this lipstick-wearing Mom who uses her three minutes of YouTube fame to tell the world that she's voting Barack even though her son plays hockey. Go figure Sarah Palin! Talking of whom, can you believe she reckons she's going to have a crack at the top job in 2012? She told ABC News, "....I'm not doing this for naught." That's provided her and McCain actually lose next week, which everyone here now seems to be taken as a given. I'm still with the Independent's Mark Steel though: it's nerve-wracking times on babieswhobrunch hill. 

Swing State

Tantalising poll numbers today for our partisan news pup from some of the swing states. A new Washington Post survey gives Obama an eight-point lead over McCain in Virginia, an erstwhile Republican stronghold. The state has 13 electoral votes, which under US voting rules would give Obama 13 of the 270 electoral college votes he needs to become president if it were to turn blue on 4 November. 

Meanwhile, CNN puts Obama's lead in Ohio, a state that swung the election for Bush in 2004, at five points over McCain. With 7 per cent of the state's voters still undecided, there is all to play for however, which was why both candidates were back there this evening. As were Daddy J and Kevin Connolly, working on a Today package due to air this Friday. 

Swing states are strange beasts, especially when they carry as many electoral votes - 20 - as Ohio. And swing districts within those states are even stranger. Take Ironton, Lawrence County, on the Ohio-West Virgina border. A depressed iron town (the clue's in the name), Ironton is ignored by both Washington and the modern economy in a normal year. But come election time and suddenly its flavour of the month. Bush was so thrilled with Ironton's efforts to rally local Republicans last time round that he threw a special thank you dinner for the local party chieftains. This time, though, it is the Democrats who are busy wooing the residents. The bright lights of an Obama campaign office bring a glow to an otherwise semi-deserted Main Street. 

DJ will be hoping their piece doesn't have the same impact on Ironton's independent voters that the Guardian's infamous campaign in Clark County, Ohio, had last time round. Then, earnest Grauniad readers helped to turn the district Republican from Democrat after letters imploring residents to vote Bush out of office had the opposite effect. Thankfully their BBC package will be non-partisan. Just as well they didn't take Louis with them. He spent the weekend campaigning in his Obama onesie, although in line with BBC guidelines it's hidden from view by his (new) sweatshirt in his "swing" video below.  

Stuckhome Syndrome

So, since we arriving in DC fiveish weeks ago (as with Louis's age I've stopped counting), I've had probably five offers of potential babysitting. What's more, four of them would set us back no more than the cost of a takeaway pizza. I should be dancing with joy, booking theatre tickets and reading up on the hottest restaurants. But am I?

Um, no. Truth is, I'm suffering from Stuckhome Syndrome. My symptoms suggest it's a classic case of the psychological phenomenon that afflicts 99 per cent of new mums everywhere. Since my life was kidnapped on 5 June, I've become obsessed with my captor (the smiling cherub pictured - at home - above). I'm hostage to his every whim. When he smiles, I smile; when he cries, I cry; when he wakes, I wake. The doctors may have snapped the cord that bound us when they plucked him out, but in truth we are just as tightly attached as ever. 

I've given up even wanting an evening off when the odd time I've made a bid for freedom has ended in tears. His, not mine but they're practically one and the same thing. So while Daddy J jets off to Oxford, Long Island, St Louis, Nashville, Boca Raton and Charleston (West Virginia, not South Carolina luckily, where he is tonight), I'm really much happier here sitting here of an evening staring at my blank cream walls with the TV volume turned down low. Honest! Plus there's always the chance that he might wake and want me. Talking of which I can hear him now....