The Note: Ready to Go

Nov. 4, 2008— -- My friends, it's time to turn the page. You betcha, literally.

From Wasilla to Wilmington, whether you're a plumber or a superdelegate, a Wright or a Wurzelbacher, a hopemonger or a pitbull or Miss Congeniality, That One or The One or Joe Sixpack, it's all over but the voting now.

That would be 19 hours of voting -- with the first polls having opened at 6 am ET in eastern states (and long lines forming early) and the last polls closing at 1 am ET Wednesday in Alaska. (Alas, no one votes at 3 am.)

Your bitter fundamentals: 35 Senate races, 435 House races, 11 governor's contests, ballot initiatives from a ban on gay marriage in California to a ban on the income tax in Massachusetts -- and a little big thing known as the presidency being decided in 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

This remarkable journey -- the longest and costliest campaign in history, with detours through Rudy and Huck and Romney and Ron Paul '08, and Edwards and Richardson and Mike Gravel and Hillary and Hillary and Hillary -- isn't quite done yet:

John McCain votes in Arizona Tuesday morning and then makes quick trips to Colorado and New Mexico -- trying to hold on in his native Southwest. (No movie on this kind of packed schedule.)

Barack Obama touches down in the Indianapolis area during the day before settling in for the evening in Chicago, with his massive late-night rally set for Grant Park. (And yes, he's building in some time for basketball.)

Joe Biden votes in Wilmington, Del., early Tuesday, then hits Richmond, Va., at 11 am ET before heading to the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago for the long wait.

Sarah Palin is en route to Wasilla, Alaska, to vote Tuesday, then will head back to Arizona to be with McCain at the Biltmore in Phoenix.

As for who gets to celebrate: The final ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll puts it at a nine-point race, 53-44 Obama over McCain. Obama is "strong in the center and even encroaching on some Republican-leaning groups. Obama trails by 7 points among whites, for example -- a group John Kerry lost by 17," per ABC's polling director Gary Langer.

(Who's more nervous Tuesday night -- Obamaland, Team McCain, or polling nation?)

Karl Rove sees an Obama win -- turning Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida blue: "The final Rove & Co. electoral map of the 2008 election cycle points to a 338-200 Barack Obama electoral vote victory over John McCain tomorrow, the largest electoral margin since 1996."

That's the Real Clear Politics tally, too, when battleground states are allocated fully.

Crunching the numbers at FiveThirtyEight.com, the numbers folks guesstimate Obama 346.5, McCain 191.5.

The early state to watch for Obama: Virginia is for landslide lovers. Give him the Old Dominion (where polls close at 7 pm ET) and try to argue he won't win the presidency.

For McCain: Pennsylvania means pathways. Picking up the Keystone State (8 pm ET poll closing time) gives McCain Electoral College options that can get him to 270, though far from a sure victory.

The Weather.com Election Day update: "Gusty southerly winds will transport very warm air into the northern Plains, the Upper Midwest, and the Great Lakes. . . . Although the majority of the East will enjoy comfortable and tranquil weather, the Southeast coast can not say the same. A developing coastal storm off the South Carolina coast will provide rain, gray skies, and blustery conditions for parts of South Carolina, eastern North Carolina, and eastern Virginia."

McCain, on "Good Morning America" Tuesday, tells ABC's David Wright that he has no regrets about the conduct of his campaign: "No one knows what the voter turnout's gonna be. Look, I'm very happy with where we are. We always do best when I'm a bit of an underdog," said McCain. "I'm proud of the campaign we ran. The pundits wrote us off four or five times -- and in fact, they've been doing it recently. And we're gonna -- we're doing fine, and we have polling data, and there's public polling data that shows we're really closing."

To ESPN's John Burns: "I want them to think, he . . . could . . . go . . . all . . . the . . . way to the White House. And even though some pundits, some pundits have written me off, that's why they play the game."

"I will never, ever let you down," McCain said at his closing rally in Prescott, Ariz.

A bit more optimism, perhaps, in Obama's voice: "You know, the thing that keeps me up is not actually winning or loosing -- it's governing," Obama tells ABC's Ann Compton. "When I think about things when the lights are out and I'm tossing and turning in bed, it's how do we make sure we fulfill the commitments to the American people that we've made throughout this campaign."

Back at his rallies, at the end: "Fired up! Ready to go!"

For what this is worth: "As the contest headed to its finish, an air of normalcy surrounded Mr. Obama," Jeff Zeleny and Elisabeth Bumiller report in The New York Times. "There was no rush of friends or advisers on the plane for the final flights. His demeanor, at least from his public appearances, seemed the same as it has for months. His schedule of rallies was no different than at any point in the general election."

Another cut: "Obama seemed almost unsteady amid the emotional barrage of the end of the campaign and his grandmother's death, while his aides held fast to solid, positive early voting numbers with a mood one Chicago staffer described as 'cautiously nauseous,' " Politico's Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin report. "A hoarse McCain and his top aides and advisers, clinging to the far weaker evidence of favored polls, evidenced an upbeat, even jaunty attitude through a grueling final day of airport hangar rallies that took them through seven states in just over 24 hours." http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15239.html

A sentence worth remembering for the man who may be No. 44: "From the outside, he looked like a candidate wary of the fishbowl and realizing that, if elected, he may never emerge from it," Smith and Martin write.

Of course, it's a bittersweet period for Obama, as he remembers his grandmother on the day he hopes to fulfill a dream that beyond anything she might have imagined.

"In this crowd there are a lot of quiet heroes like that," Obama said Monday night in Charlotte, N.C., per ABC's Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller. "Mothers and fathers and grandparents who have worked hard and sacrificed all their lives and the satisfaction that they get is seeing that their children and maybe their grandchildren and their great grandchildren live a better life than they did. That's what America's about. That's what we're fighting for."

(Madelyn Dunham's ballot, received Oct. 27, will count, Hawaii Chief Elections Officer Kevin Cronin tells ABC's Tahman Bradley, Rigel Anderson, and Arnab Datta.)

We should know early on who gets to keep commitments, and who gets to go home: "The political pros say they'll be watching to see whether Pennsylvania goes red Tuesday -- if so, Sen. John McCain might pull off one of the greatest comebacks in political history and be on his way to the White House," Stephen Dinan and Ralph Z. Hallow report in the Washington Times. "But if Sen. Barack Obama holds Pennsylvania and collects Virginia or Indiana, two states that haven't gone Democratic since 1964, a landslide is in the offing for Democrats, and that could help them win down-ticket races that could give them a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate."