Thanks to murderous Mao (he killed more than Hitler and Stalin) & his loyal Red comrades, Tibetan Buddhism came to the West following the 1959 “liberation.”

Given that 50 years have passed, the last generation of born-and-raised-and-trained in Tibet teachers is getting long in the tooth. So get thee to a nunnery or monastery–or an urban meditation center, or a luxurious rural retreat–and dip your toes in enlightenment.

The Buddhists won’t mind if you’re just window-to-the-soul shopping…a pioneer (along with Alan Watts and Suzuki Roshi) in transmitting Buddhism to the West, Chogyam Trungpa (author; founder of Naropa University) wanted his best-selling Shambhala book to be sold in every grocery in America, right by the tabloids.

Though he warned against “spiritual materialism“–using religion to perfect the Self, and brace up the ego–he wanted the wisdom of Buddhism to be available, and made practical, to Rabbis, Reverends and Heathens alike.

So here’s my Top 10 Buddhist Teachers You Can Study With list. I’ve disqualified charlatans, egomaniacs, promising youngsters who have yet to prove themself…and those who you can’t really study with because they’re too famous to actually study with (Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh), in private meditation retreat all the time (Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Dzongsar Khentsye Rinpoche), or rarely in the West (The Karmapa, Khandro Rinpoche).

If I’ve forgotten or overlooked anyone, I’ll be happy to add them to the must-check-out list if I get a groundswell of vicious comments.

1. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche ~ he’s young but not too young, experienced, thoroughly Westernized (though exotically Tibetan, heritage-wise), a great teacher and frequently accessible at programs around the US, Europe, Canada, even South America. But because he’s a rising star, you’ve got to make an effort if you want personal training.

2. Pema Chodron ~ though Pema is a best selling, accessible, wise, safe teacher, and Oprah loves her…I nearly disqualified her because she’s no longer frequently accessible. But she’s just too good to overlook. So check out her teaching schedule, and connect with her before she retires or goes into retreat.

3. Sharon Salzberg ~ like Pema, she’s a best-selling author and accessible teacher. While less magnetizing than Pema, she’s deeply experienced and warm-hearted. With her partners-in-crime Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, she teaches mostly out of the Insight Meditation Centre in Barre, Mass.

4. Ponlop Rinpoche ~ like Mipham Rinpoche and Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche (below), a young, well-trained teacher who belongs to the first generation of Tibetan Buddhist raised and trained in the West. He’s got an avid, small community–perfect if you want personal attention and training.

5. Joan Halifax Roshi ~ a strikingly-lovely, wise and venerable American Zen teacher, she’s based out of her Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico, and works with the yoga community extensively. A superstar.

6. Dr. Reggie Ray ~ while he’s been caught in that “I’m American yet folks treat me like a guru vortex” that’s chewed up and spit out Osel Tendzin and Richard Baker Roshi before him, Reggie is like Pema a magnetic, accessible teacher. Unlike Pema, he’s got a small community with whom he works closely. Perfect if you want personal attention and training.

8. Norman Fischer ~ I don’t know him at all, being mostly a Tibetan Buddhist trained boy myself, but he’s got a stellar reputation for integrity.

9. Robert Thurman, Dr. Judith Simmer-Brown, Dale Asrael, Frank Berliner ~ alright, I’m cheating–combining four in one–but if you’re college-age, you can find the last three professors (and other gems, too) at little Naropa University. Dr. Simmer-Brown is an expert in feminism, or the feminine principle in Buddhism, Ms. Asrael is wise and kind, Mr. Berliner is deeply serious, knowledgeable, caring, and impossibly good looking–the Marlboro man of Buddhism

As for superstar Robert Thurman, he teaches at Columbia, and is perfect for those who want to connect with the Dalai Lama’s teachings.

10. Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche ~ like Ponlop Rinpoche, if you’re looking for a small community, personal attention and deep study, he’s perfect for you. If however, like me and most, you’re looking to simply inject a little mindfulness and awake-ness and peace and sanity into your daily life, stick with the superstars listed above.

The basic point: meditation is good for you. As Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche says, we here in the West get that we have to train our bodies if we want ‘em to be healthy. But what about our minds? We ignore them. So get thee to an eco meditation cushion, if only for a few minutes each morning before the day’s madness ensues…and if you need a jump-start of inspiration or a little training, check out one of the above.

Members of his party are doing their best to appeal for the funds without appearing greedy, ungrateful or hostile to their new leader.

“If I was a top adviser to the president elect, I wouldn’t necessarily be advocating saving those dollars,” said Raymond Buckle, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.

“It was critically important that we not repeat what happened in ‘93, ‘94,” when President Bill Clinton held the purse strings and Democrats lost 54 U.S. House seats and eight senators during midterm elections.

“We need the resources to build the national grass roots network for the Obama agenda. We need to make sure the president is successful and that the administration fulfills his promises,” Buckley said.

The Democratic National Committee is carrying about $5 million in debt, with almost $12 million cash on hand. DNC officials say they expect to have the debt paid by the end of the year.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign CommitteeDemocratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is nearly $13 million in debt. carries some $19 million in debt and less than $3 million on hand. The

Obama raised more than $745 million during his marathon campaign, more than twice the amount obtained by his rival, Republican John McCain. In his latest finance report, Obama reported raising $104 million in more than five weeks immediately before and after Election Day.

“This is the first presidential candidate and president who has not been publicly financed in the general election,” said Ken Gross, a former Federal Election Commission lawyer. “Every other president since Jimmy Carter has not had excess funds.”

Obama opted not to participate in public funding system. In exchange, he was able to continue raising money, while McCain accepted $84 million in taxpayer money, and the spending restrictions that went with it, through the public financing system.

“The only example that comes to mind is John Kerry,” Gross said. “He finished his primary campaign with a $15 million surplus. That created some grumbling, since he lost.”

Democrats blamed Kerry’s loss, in part, on a campaign hierarchy that didn’t spend wisely or aggressively. Kerry’s own campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, called it “gross incompetence to hoard that money when the race was bound to be so close.”

Obama aides are aware of the stigma and don’t want to appear inelegant or selfish. They are weighing whether to keep the money to build a massive grass roots program to support his agenda, or to cycle that money to the party apparatus. Both ideas have strong advocates, but it’s unclear to those involved which way Obama will go.

“We aren’t in a position to announce what the next steps for our organization are today, but are continuing a dialogue with our supporters about their vision for how we move forward,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Party officials around the country say the campaign leaders have signaled they shouldn’t expect the money to come to them directly, if at all. Instead, many party officials expect Obama to use his funds to advance his own priorities, to support his massive Internet-based organization and to have cache for special causes. With almost 4 million donors, Obama’s fundraising list could prove golden for future Obama-backed drives.

“Right now, it looks like the sky is the limit,” Gross said.

Obama aides emphasize the campaign expects to continue having expenses, along with tax obligations and political operations. They also say Obama has little interest in bankrolling state committees or individual candidates. Those involved say the logical option is the Democratic National Committee, although no one is pressing for a quick transfer.

On Wednesday, Obama send a fundraising e-mail to his supporters asking them to help retire that debt by buying coffee mugs or fleece sweat shirts. Obama and Democratic aides alike say they would use similar efforts going forward, but were aware that asking too often could dilute the effectiveness of the list.

Legally, Obama can donate the extra money to charity, transfer it to another political campaign, or dole it out in $2,000 increments to local candidates, Gross said.

“That’s not too attractive, but it’s something,” Gross said.

His remarks followed comments from his brother, President Raul Castro, who told a U.S. magazine he could meet Obama in a “neutral place” to try to end the Communist-run island’s four-decade conflict with the United States.

“With Obama, talks could happen anywhere he wants,” Fidel Castro, America’s longtime Cold War enemy, wrote in the latest of a series of columns he has published in state-run media since falling ill in 2006.

“He should remember the carrot-and-stick approach will not work with our country,” Castro wrote of Obama. “The sovereign rights of the Cuban people are not negotiable.”

Fidel Castro, who took power nearly 50 years ago after an armed revolution, has not been seen in public since undergoing surgery for an undisclosed illness in July 2006. But he has met several state leaders and appeared in photographs.

Obama, who takes office on January 20, has raised hopes of improved U.S.-Cuba ties by saying he was open to talks with the Cuban government and has favored easing some U.S. sanctions.

He has said he will reverse the U.S. administration’s policies restricting Cuban Americans from visiting Cuba and sending cash to their families. He is willing to talk to Castro but would keep the four-decade-old U.S. trade embargo as leverage to influence changes in the one-party state.

Raul Castro formally took over the Cuban presidency in February and has said several times Havana is willing to talk to the United States.

Before the U.S. presidential election last month, Fidel Castro praised Obama as intelligent and humanitarian in the columns that have become his main form of communication.

Raul suggested in the interview he could meet Obama in Guantanamo Bay, where the United States maintains a naval base, which Cuba considers a violation of its sovereignty.

(Reporting by Patrick Markey; editing by Todd Eastham)

It afforded me a new paradigm, a new way of thinking about my place in society. It also gave me the best insight into his problem solving skills. Jeremiah Wright was the problem, the Philadelphia speech was the solution.

I’m convinced McCain made the same mistake Hillary made. He didn’t take Obama seriously until it was almost too late. If you’ve watched McCain on the stump over the past few days, he’s clearly taking him seriously now.

When he rolled out the Paris Hilton ad several months ago, I told friends at the time it was a mistake. My reasoning was simple. He was going to have to face Obama during the debates and people would see for themselves that Obama isn’t an empty suit. What was he going to do then?

Then he spent a week assaulting Obama about “Lipstick on a pig.” I watched in horror as the press justified its coverage of this nonstory. But more to the point, it went to my objection to the entire approach. It lacked seriousness.

One might argue that the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was the penultimate example of the McCain’s refusal to take this election seriously. But it may have simply been a mistake. It’s interesting to consider that the only two women ever to make it on the ticket of a major party, were unable to convince the public they were up to the job. In 1984 it was Geraldine Ferraro, in 2008, Sarah Palin.

Obama seems to have an uncanny ability to get his opponents to underestimate him. That’s at least one “Obama effect” but there are others. I mentioned above the effect he’s had on me.

One of my readers sent me a photo array of a group of supporters called “Rednecks for Obama.” In my previous post, I mentioned another group known as “Racists for Obama.” Obama supporters have reported encounters with “Racists for Obama” while canvassing. They even have their own acronym – C.H.A.N.G.E. (Come Help a N*gger Get Elected). They throw around the N word with abandon when talking to canvassers, but insist they fully intend to vote for Obama on Election Day.

Professional pollsters have taken an acute interest in “Racists for Obama.” They estimate that some 23% of voters with “negative views of African Americans” will pull the lever for Obama. Personally, I have mixed feelings about it. But considering that McCain’s chief pollster, Bill McInturff, all but declared that he’s counting on these voters on Election Day, I’d just as soon they voted for Obama.

We mustn’t confuse “Rednecks for Obama” with “Racists for Obama.” The photos I have show Rednecks for Obama wearing T-Shirts, wielding banners and shaking Obama’s hand at rallies, smiling all the while. Obviously, a redneck ain’t necessarily a racist.

There’s been much discussion of something called “the reverse Bradley effect.” Tom Bradley was the African American former Mayor of Los Angeles who was 7 points up in the polls in California, only to lose a tight race to his white opponent, George Deukmejian. This led to speculation that many whites simply lied to pollsters.

Conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker cites a number of “mostly white-collar men and women who speak republican in public” but who tell her privately that they will vote for Obama. But as we’ve seen, there are lots of blue collar workers poised to do exactly the same thing; some privately, others not so privately. I call it the Obama Effect. It means different things in different circumstances, but it all seems to be adding up to the same thing. Change.

Former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton may also have a hand in that sentiment.

Some 40% of women over 50 years old, a core Clinton constituency in the primary, said they were more proud of their country — the highest level of any sub-group of voters, according to the poll.”

Put aside the mud-slinging for a moment. More than one-third of voters said the 2008 presidential election has made them “more proud” to be an American, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

With the first African American candidate on the Democratic ticket, and the first woman on the Republican ticket, 34% of voters said this historic election has improved their view of the country.

Former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton may also have a hand in that sentiment. Some 40% of women over 50 years old, a core Clinton constituency in the primary, said they were more proud of their country — the highest level of any sub-group of voters, according to the poll.

Just 12% said it has made them “less proud,” with voters over 65 years old registering the lowest dip in pride at 19%. The majority of voters, 45%, said the election season has made no difference in how they view America.

The policy differences between Barack Obama and John McCain are clear and stark. It seems to me that, at this point, if a voter is choosing based on issues, it’s a no-brainer which of the two is closer to his/her values.

And for voters choosing based on personality (that is, who they want to have a beer with, or who has a certain skin color), not much can be done to change their minds.

But there is one valid factor that has not been discussed much, and that goes beyond issues of policy or philosophy. We have watched Obama and McCain run their campaigns for nearly two years.

These are sprawling organizations with huge budgets and vast staffs. And they have had to act as almost shadow administrations, taking positions as issues arose in the world.

To me, watching how Obama and McCain ran their campaign operations provided the best insight into how competent each man would be in running a presidential administration. In a post-Katrina world, the American people certainly should be holding competency high on the list of criteria necessary to be president.

I think a question every voter needs to ask himself/herself before voting is: Which candidate has run the kind of campaign operation I would like to see the federal government emulate? I think the answer to this query has a clear and simple answer: Barack Obama.

I’m surprised there hasn’t been more discussion (any discussion, really) in any quarters (the campaigns and the media) of this simple fact. Obama’s campaign has been run like a well-oiled machine (often to the frustration of his opponents), while McCain’s campaign has been a circus. Consider these areas:

Continuity
The two leading figures in Obama’s campaign, David Axelrod and David Plouffe, have been with Obama since his 2004 run for the U.S. Senate. Obama and his team settled on a message and a plan that they have stayed on for two years.

You’ve heard it so many times, you can probably recite it along with me: change (ending the financial and foreign policy strategies of the last eight years and adopting new ones that work better for all Americans), inclusion (no red states or blue states, only the United States), and hope (inspiring rather than tearing down).

Obama identified a goal, came up with an effective plan to attain that goal, and followed it. Not a bad thing for an administration to do, no?

And what of McCain’s campaign? The only continuity was the consistent lack of it. There were two staff shake-ups. The message veered from point to point with no overriding theme. As easy as it was to predict the three things I would write to describe Obama’s vision, what can you say McCain has stuck with for his two years on the campaign trail? McCain started with the experience argument. When that didn’t work, he shifted to national security.

When the economic woes prevented that from getting traction, he belatedly moved to the economy, careening around for a couple of weeks before finally embracing a tax argument in time for the last debate (and the appearance of the overexposed Joe the Plumber).

In the end, McCain has relied on telling us what Obama is not, rather than what he is. When he scolded Obama in the third debate that he was not George W. Bush, the reason the argument didn’t resonate with voters was not just because he voted with Bush 89 percent of the time since he has been in the Senate, but because he spent the whole primary season telling Republicans how much he agreed with the president.

During one of the debates, McCain argued he should be elected president because he would be a “steady hand” at “the tiller.” But from watching two years of running their campaigns, Obama has proven to be the steadier hand.

Organization
If Obama wins, the big story will be the historic act of America electing an African American president. And it should be. But what may be lost is the impressive feat that Obama pulled off, namely that as a first-time candidate for the White House, he was able to put together and oversee a vastly better operation than either of his two well-connected insider rivals, Hillary Clinton and McCain.

Starting from scratch, Obama and his campaign built a large, powerful, active, engaged and effective organization that worked harder and better than anyone else’s. It allowed him to dominate the Democratic caucuses and get out the vote for the Democratic primaries, and it looks like it will allow him to win in the general election in states in which nobody thought a Democrat could be successful.

After eight years of a government that is broken, it would be great to have an administration that works as well as the Obama campaign has.

And for those who say, “Well, he had so much money,” I have two replies: First, how do you think he got all that money? Sure, people had to be excited about the message, but without a well-organized campaign, Obama would not have been able to turn that enthusiasm into millions of small donations.

Second, even with a money advantage, Obama’s campaign was leaner and meaner than McCain’s. Of the 10 highest-paid campaign employees, seven of the 10 work for McCain, including the three highest earners. At a time of economic crisis, the ability to work efficiently is essential, and Obama has proven he can do it.

Sean Quinn at fivethirtyeight.com did an excellent job of discussing the strength of the Obama “ground game.”

Big Decisions
As John Kerry pointed out on Meet the Press on Sunday, the candidates have had two major decisions to make during the general election campaign: Who should be their running mates, and how they should handle the financial crisis. On both, the candidates showed how they operate.

Regarding the vice presidential selections, Obama’s vetting process was so thorough, Tim Kaine joked on The Daily Show about how in-depth it was (including his “high school girlfriend’s middle name”). The result was the selection of Joe Biden, an experienced Senator with impeccable foreign policy credentials, the one area that was perceived to be a weakness for Obama.

And what did McCain do? When the right-wing elements of his party would not let him choose Joseph Lieberman, he responded by impetuously going with Sarah Palin. He reportedly made the decision after having had only one meeting and one phone conversation with her, and with no formal vetting process. And how did that work out for McCain?

Palin has been roundly criticized, by individuals with a range of political orientations, for being unfit to be vice president. And while her selection energized the base and gave McCain a much-needed jolt of excitement in the campaign, the long-term results were far less positive.

Her shocking lack of knowledge and depth of thought, as exposed in her disastrous interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric and her talking-points spewing performance in the debate, ultimately caused her to become a drag on the ticket, preventing many independents from supporting McCain.

And she seemed to have an endless stream of skeletons in her Nieman-Marcus-stuffed closet, from ethics violations to the secessionist party her husband belonged to.

Palin’s fall from grace was not outside the realm of prediction. A careful vetting process would have revealed the very problems that caused her to be a net negative on the ticket. McCain’s impetuousness, along with his shocking lack of judgment, don’t bode well for his ability to make decisions as president.

To be clear, I’m not talking about my judgment of Palin (if you want that, you can read this). I am saying that, objectively speaking, Palin’s selection was impulsive and reckless, and, in the end, was damaging to McCain’s campaign (judged by the polls, including a recent one by CBS News/The New York Times that Found that 59 percent of respondents found her not qualified to be vice president).

On the running mate issue, Obama conducted himself more as you would want a president to act. Just as he did when the economic crisis hit last month.

McCain, days after declaring that the “fundamentals of the economy” were “strong” (watch him say it here), was forced to change his tune as the crisis deepened. He responded by “suspending” his campaign to rush to Washington to “help” get a deal for a bailout package. (This was after he did a 180-degree turn on the bailout of AIG). He also tried to get the first debate postponed.

McCain’s poll numbers took a nosedive after Americans watched his unsteady handling of the crisis. McCain’s conduct was in stark contrast to the way Obama handled things. He took counsel from economic experts, stayed in touch with Congressional leaders, made his feelings known, and, most importantly, didn’t try and disrupt the legislative process by thrusting himself into the middle of it.

And most of all, he remained calm, steady and collected. As John Kerry pointed out on Meet the Press on Sunday, the four principals Obama laid out as being essential to any bailout legislation were contained in the final bill.

Tone
As you look back on the 2008 election, whose campaign would make you prouder to be an American? Obama certainly ran some tough ads challenging McCain’s policies and voting record, but McCain took the campaign into the gutter, allowing McCarthy-esque attacks on Obama as a socialist, calling out Obama on his patriotism, and running the same kind of smear-filled robocalls that McCain himself was a victim of in the 2000 South Carolina primary.

McCain ominously asked in television ads, “Who is Barack Obama?”, as if there were deep mysteries that had to be uncovered, instead of Obama being one of the most heavily vetted candidates in the history of elections. (You know that if Obama had tripped over an American flag as a third-grader, some right-wing investigator would have uncovered it by now.)

But keep in mind that Obama never asked, “Who is John McCain?”, even though Obama really would have had more to say. The best McCain could do was talk about Obama sitting on the same charity boards as Bill Ayers or a meeting with a Palestinian Columbia professor (to whom McCain’s organization had given half-a-million dollars). But Obama never struck back, allowing McCain to portray himself as he saw fit, unchallenged.

Anyone who has read Tim Dickinson’s well-researched, scathing piece in Rolling Stone on McCain knows that he is not the man he portrays himself to be. Had Obama done many of the things that McCain did, McCain would have them plastered in ads in every swing state. But Obama never raised anything from McCain’s past, even though I have no doubt that many undecided voters would be greatly affected if they read Dickinson’s article.

In six months, you have never heard Obama utter the name “Keating,” and even when given a chance to say something bad about Palin during the third debate, he declined to do so (and McCain followed by eviscerating Biden).

At a time when the standing of the United States in the world has been battered by eight years of damaging conduct by the Bush administration, it is important for America to re-establish its international credibility. That is why looking at the way Obama and McCain conducted themselves during the campaign is so important. Obama offered an approach we can all be proud of, while McCain’s descent into the gutter is all too reminiscent of Bush’s behavior.

Top Staff
Compare Obama’s inner circle to McCain’s closest advisers. McCain has relied on a team of lobbyists. Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, accepted $2 million in fees from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with payments reportedly made to his company as recently as August, and the nation of Georgia paid the firm of McCain’s top foreign policy adviser, Randall Scheunemann, nearly $900,000. As the Washington Post pointed out, nearly every one of McCain’s top advisers is a lobbyist, including Steve Schmidt, Mark McKinnon and Charles Black Jr. CNN confirmed that seven of the top officials in the McCain campaign were lobbyists.

Which might explain why the McCain campaign was run so poorly that it drew angry criticism from conservatives.

McCain’s biggest misstep of all might have been allowing Phil Gramm, the former Texas Senator, to be the chief architect of his economic plan. Gramm was primarily responsible for knocking down the 65-year-old protections of the Glass-Steagall Act, which many analysts agree was at the heart of the recent credit crisis.

As a voter, is this how you want your White House run?

Obama has rejected money from lobbyists and surrounded himself with advisers who have distinguished themselves in their fields (people like former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former National Security Advisor Tony Lake).

You may not agree with the politics of Obama’s advisers, but they are unquestionably less tainted than the lobbyists with whom McCain surrounded himself.

And again, in a post-Katrina world, isn’t competency important?

Vision
Obama took a 21st Century, post-partisan approach to the campaign, saying early on he would compete in traditional red states, a position that was roundly dismissed as wishful thinking by both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

But Obama was proven correct. He is ahead in the polls in the Bush-won states of Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and Iowa; he is essentially tied in the formerly red states of North Carolina, Ohio, Missouri and Florida; and he is close in the formerly bright red states of Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona.

Meanwhile, McCain is trying to piece together an electoral college victory while defending states that were once thought to be safe for him, and through a quixotic, Hail Mary effort in Pennsylvania. As Nate Silver wrote on fivethirtyeight.com about McCain’s hopes of competing in Pennsylvania (having a bit of fun with Hillary Clinton’s old jibe at Obama), “hope is not a strategy.”

If you put aside the issues and personalities and judge Obama and McCain based on their campaigns, there is a clear choice as to what kind of America you want for the next four years. And if you’re looking for competence, organization, steadiness, vision, good judgment and behavior we can be proud of, the choice is obvious: Vote for Barack Obama.

The first, sent to us by a reader and designed by Tor Myhren who is Chief Creative Officer for Grey Advertising in New York, asks you to imagine what the issues would be if Obama were white and John McCain were black.

The second, which we found posted on Houston street in Manhattan last night, imagines Obama as a cholo and offers him as the best candidate for “El Presidenté” (with an inappropriate accent mark. Whoops.)

We did a little googling and found out it was designed by a hair stylist named David Cordova in Los Angeles. He said in an interview that his motivation was getting hispanics to vote for Obama. Both are traffic stopping to be sure.

Check them out after the jump and be sure to vote tomorrow if you haven’t already.

Here’s the Obama cholo poster in color, but not very big.

2. The Iraq war

3. The economic implosion this fall.

4. Without the national security card McCain couldn’t win.

5. Hillary Clinton made Barack Obama a better candidate than he ever would have been on his own.

6. McCain picked Sarah Palin without vetting her, and believed she was interchangeable with Hillary Clinton.

7. McCain and his team bought the notion of the mythical anti Obama Hillary block and doubted that Hillary Clinton, along with Bill Clinton, would bring her supporters home (in droves).

8. McCain and his team botched the roll out of Sarah Palin, throwing her into the deep end of the media pool, instead of letting her wade with the wingnuts and radio barkers who would have protected her.

9. McCain turned into a candidate no one recognized, sacrificing his core “maverick” message.

10. McCain and his team misjudged, underestimated and disrespected the formidable talent of Barack Obama and the team he put together.

“We are one day away from change in America,” said Obama, a Democrat seeking to become the first black president _ a dream not nearly as distant on election eve as it once was.

McCain, too, promised to turn the page of the era of George W. Bush and said he sensed an upset in the making.

“This momentum, this enthusiasm convinces me we’re going to win tomorrow,” McCain told a raucous evening rally in Henderson, Nev., part of a seven-state campaign sprint that was to end in Arizona early Tuesday.

Republican running mate Sarah Palin was more pointed as she campaigned in Ohio. “Now is not the time to experiment with socialism,” she said. “Our opponent’s plan is just for bigger government.”

Late-season attacks aside, Obama led in virtually all the pre-election polls in a race where economic concerns dominated and the war in Iraq was pushed _ however temporarily _ into the background.

While the overall number of early votes was unknown, statistics showed more than 29 million ballots cast in 30 states and suggested an advantage for Obama. Democrats voted in larger numbers than Republicans in North Carolina, Colorado, Florida and Iowa, all of which went for President Bush in 2004.

Obama came out on top in the first Tuesday votes, recorded just after midnight in two small New Hampshire towns. Obama defeated McCain by a 15-6 vote in Dixville Notch, while Hart’s Location reported 17 votes for Obama, 10 for McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul.

Democrats also anticipated gains in the House and in the Senate, although Republicans battled to hold their losses to a minimum and a significant number of races were rated as tossups in the campaign’s final hours.

By their near-non-stop attention to states that voted Republican in 2004, both Obama and McCain acknowledged the Democrats’ advantage in the presidential race.

The two rivals both began their days in Florida, a traditionally Republican state with 27 electoral votes where polls make it close.

Obama drew 9,000 or so at a rally in Jacksonville, while across the state, a crowd estimated at roughly 1,000 turned out for McCain.

The front-runner also choked up on the campaign’s final day as he told a crowd in North Carolina of the death of his grandmother from cancer. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86.

“She died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side,” he said of the woman who had played a large role in his upbringing. “And so there is great joy as well as tears. I’m not going to talk about it too long because it is hard for me to talk about.”

McCain and his wife issued a statement of condolence.

One day before the election, no battleground state was left unattended.

But Virginia, where no Democrat has won in 40 years, and Ohio, where no Republican president has ever lost, seemed most coveted. Together, they account for 33 electoral votes that McCain can scarcely do without.

Democratic volunteers in Maryland, a state safe for Obama, called voters in next-door Virginia, where McCain trailed in the polls. The Democratic presidential candidate’s visit to Virginia during the day was his 11th since he clinched the nomination.

Unwilling to concede anything, McCain’s campaign filed a lawsuit in Richmond seeking to force election officials to count late-arriving ballots from members of the armed forces overseas. No hearing was immediately scheduled.

Several hundred miles away in Ohio _ the state that sealed Bush’s second term in 2004 _ voters waited as long as three hours in line to cast ballots in Columbus, part of heavily contested Franklin County. Poll workers handed out bottles of water to sustain them.

Lori Huffman, 38, a supervisor at UPS Inc., took the day off to vote early for her man, McCain. “It’s exciting isn’t it?” she asked, gesturing toward the long line of waiting voters.

“This is happening all over the state, from Cleveland to Dayton,” said Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat trying to deliver his state to Obama.

Obama hoped so, after more than a year building an elaborate get-out-the-vote operation, first for the primary campaign, now for the general election.

The Democrat flew from Florida to North Carolina to Virginia, all states that went Republican in 2004, before heading home to Chicago on Election Eve.

Twenty-one months after he launched his campaign, he allowed, “You know. I feel pretty peaceful … I gotta say.”

On a syndicated radio program, “The Russ Parr Morning Show,” he said, “The question is going to be who wants it more. And I hope that our supporters want it bad, because I think the country needs it.”

If wanting it were all that mattered, the race would be a toss-up.

McCain, behind in the polls, set out on a grueling run through several traditionally Republican states that he has failed to secure. Florida, Virginia, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada were on his itinerary, as was Pennsylvania, the only state that voted Democratic in 2004 where he still nursed hopes. His last appearance of the long day, past midnight, was a home state rally in Prescott, Ariz. Obama has been running television commercials in Arizona in the campaign’s final days.

The surrogate campaigners included Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democrats and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the Republicans. Both lost races for their party’s presidential nomination earlier in the year, and both could be expected to try again if their ticket loses the White House.

Not so, President Bush.

Deeply unpopular, the man who won the White House twice was out of public view, an effort to help McCain.

Palin was racing through five Bush states Monday _ Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada _ in an effort to boost conservative turnout for McCain. The Alaska governor has been a popular draw for many GOP base voters, and already, there was speculation about a future national campaign should Republicans lose in 2008.

Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate, campaigned in Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania. “We are on the cusp of a new brand of leadership,” he assured supporters.

Biden didn’t say so, but he was as close to guaranteed a victory as any politician in America. Whatever the fate of the Democratic presidential ticket, he was heavily favored to win a new Senate term from Delaware on Tuesday.

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Eds: Espo reported from Washington. AP writers Nedra Pickler in Jacksonville, Fla., Meghan Barr in Columbus, Ohio, Joe Milica from Lakewood, Ohio, Christopher Clark in Lee’s Summit, Mo., and Kristen Wyatt in Denver contributed to this report.

From the moment four years ago when I first heard of Barack Obama and read his youthful memoir, I sensed a president in the making.

Like the young Nelson Mandela in South Africa, he seemed to hold the aura of incipient national leadership. His range of sympathies, his oratory, his intelligence, his energy marked him out from the run. His embodiment of the American dream was astonishing.

Today the outside world, much of it with a direct and painful interest in American policy, wants Obama to win, by leads of 20 to 60 per cent.

These people have no vote. But the narrower electorate of the United States appears also to want Obama to win, albeit by a smaller margin. The world prefers him chiefly because he is black, the latter chiefly because he is not Republican.

Neither reason is robust. To most non-Americans, black is still code for being apart from the American establishment. Any visitor these days to Europe, to Africa or to the muslim world is shocked by the depth of antipathy to America. It is beyond ideology, a visceral, often racial aversion, unrelated to any personal attachment to individual Americans or their much-envied way of life. The ugly American is reborn.

Yet the same visitor is impressed by how often he is assured that an Obama presidency would “change everything”. The reason is not that Obama is anti-war or pro-Palestinian or left or right wing. It is that his origins render him the one thing he most vociferously denies, not an ordinary American.

To this world, Obama is a supposed representative of an oppressed class, however much his speech, manner and career bespeak the opposite. He is black and his name is confirmation enough. He symbolises the end of the wasp ascendancy. The reason why his candidacy still discomforts many Americans is the reason the world craves it, that Obama is somehow unreal. He is a meta-American. It is why there will be an awful unleashing of grief and fury if he is not elected.

Yet Obama is real, not just a human being but a politician. In office he knows he must do more than make fine speeches and castigate the government of the day. He must grapple with the wreckage of a world economy whose collapse is in large part due to the mismanagement of American finance, from which as a senator he cannot altogether escape blame.

He must restore credit to markets and confidence to commerce. He must bring health and welfare to a country whose poor will seem ever more “third world” as unemployment bites in the coming months. To millions of Americans he will seem as a messiah. There are millions whom he can only disappoint.

Abroad, this leader would have to end not one war but two, and bring sanity to an American diplomacy that is chaotic in an arc of instability from eastern Europe to the Himalayas. The anticipation that he will be a harbinger of peace, friendship and economic salvation is probably greater than for any American since Roosevelt. The burden of expectation is awesome and unrealistic.

The qualities of charisma and rhetoric that Obama brings to this task might be a match for it. His declared policies are not. His desire to disengage from Iraq is not appreciably different from that of the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. On the other hand, his clearly expressed wish to beef up the war in Afghanistan is reckless.

Obama has approved the bombing of targets inside Pakistan (and presumably now Syria) and proposed invasion to “secure” that country’s nuclear arsenal. He has backtracked on compromise with Iran and done nothing to suggest an end to the macho provocation of Russia.

At home Obama would appear from his statements and voting records to be a conventional Democrat, essentially tax, spend and protect with tariffs. While some of this is America’s business, the world economy needs a protectionist America like a bullet in the head. American markets open to world goods are vital for recovery, as is America’s active participation in the easing of world trade. Obama has shown no sign of accepting this.

On all these fronts there is a more alarming prospect. It is that a Democratic president, even with an overwhelmingly Democratic congress, must beware of seeming soft or dovish or “appeasing terror”. Such is politics that the more liberal the man the more illiberal he can feel compelled to behave, as was the case with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Obama has yet to indicate a retreat from the patriot acts or the language of George Bush’s war on terror.

Any modern leader parrots the language of change. Obama proclaims himself the embodiment of a revolution in American public life. Yet his record is anything but radical. He even supports the right to bear arms. Were it not for his colour, he would be a candidate running on a conventional Democratic ticket, with few policies more constructive than those of his opponent, John McCain, on how America might now escape from its many predicaments.

None of this is an argument for not voting for Obama. In present-day Washington even modest competence might seem revolutionary. But democratic leadership is like Icarus. Its wings melt as soon as it flies close to the sun. Obama is flying close indeed.

The instant message that an Obama victory would flash round the world is not in doubt. It would transform and refresh America’s image, exhilarating its friends everywhere. It would restore to that country the reins of global leadership so missing in the era of Republican xenophobia. It would be an utterly good thing.

The next message could be very different. The skills that Obama has brought to his campaign are essentially personal and organisational, not the superhuman ones that will be required of any occupant of the White House in the immediate future. The higher the anticipation, the more crippling will be the effort needed to meet it, and the greater the fall if it is not met.

The prospect of a failed Obama presidency sometime in 2009/10, whether by his doing or those of circumstance, is heartbreaking to contemplate. It would more than undo the gains secured by his election and devastate the cause he is seen as representing. The least his supporters can do is not raise the bar of expectation too high.