Close race means Obama yet to close deal
The US economy is in turmoil, President George W. Bush's ratings plumb record lows, his Republicans are braced for huge losses in Congress, the Iraq war is unpopular and polls show voters think America is on the wrong track.
But still the charismatic Obama, with his clarion call for change, leads McCain, a veteran Washington insider, by only a few points in the polls, three months before election day.
Obama is "new enough on the scene and different enough, and unknown enough, to not yet have closed the sale, even though (voters) are leaning towards him," said Bruce Buchanan, a politics professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
"In the end, he has got to close the sale before he can pull away and live up to the potential of the moment for the Democrats."
An average of national polls by RealClearPolitics.com shows Obama leads McCain by a slender 47.1 per cent to 44.0 per cent, and daily tracking polls by Gallup and Rasmussen have the Democrat ahead by a hair's breadth.
In the independent website's battleground poll averages, Obama leads by less than two percentage points in Colorado, one point in Virginia, four points in Michigan, is tied in Ohio and trails by two points in Missouri, and by about a point in Florida.
"That should not be happening in an election cycle where the incumbent president is so unpopular, fighting an unpopular war, and in which the economy is experiencing as much of a downturn as it is, said Costas Panagopoulos, of Fordham University's Elections and Campaigns Management program.
Polls show that for all the hoopla about his candidacy, his soaring speeches, and the agony of the Republican Party, Obama still runs behind other office seekers in his own party.
A Rasmussen poll Tuesday found that 46 per cent of voters would vote for a Democratic congressional candidate, while 36 per cent would chose a Republican - a 10 point gap that dwarfs Obama's lead over McCain.
Analysts advance various theories for the tight nature of the race. Some believe that in the dog days of summer, many voters are yet to fully tune in and will delay a choice until closer to November 4.
Despite an unprecedented avalanche of media coverage of the convention-busting 2008 race, Obama may not yet be intimately known, or have made voters comfortable with his character and profile.
There has been enough unflattering imagery, for instance tapes of racial rants by his ex-pastor Jeremiah Wright, to give some voters pause, and Obama's quest to be the first African-American president is another intangible.
And despite what many observers have deemed an uneven campaign, McCain's life story of military heroism, independence, and reputation of annoying his own unpopular party may also be attractive to many voters.
With the race apparently still a statistical tie, the next 10 weeks or so could be crucial.
Each candidate will chose a vice presidential running mate, showcase their biographies and platform at party nominating conventions, and clash at high-stakes one-on-one presidential debates.
Their political hit squads will meanwhile try to rupture the rival campaign, and create a negative narrative to doom the other candidate.
Obama aides say they are unconcerned the race is close, despite McCain's fierce recent attempt to exploit doubts among voters about their boss's character and readiness to lead.
Campaign manager David Plouffe, lauded for engineering the downfall of the Clinton machine in the primaries, argues Obama will bust voter turnout projections, the basis for most polls, on election day.
"One of the under-appreciated facts of the election right now is the disparity between the intensity of Obama supporters and McCain supporters," he told reporters on a conference call last week.
"That is going to mean more favorable turnout patterns, it is going to help us register voters, it is going to help us organizationally."
"We feel very confident about where we are," he said, but conceded that voters still "need to learn a lot about Barack Obama."
The Obama campaign also says it is building the broadest election structure in US presidential history, across a swathe of battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and in the west.