The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Jacksonville

Barack Obama stood on the threshold of history Monday as polls gave the Democrat a sharp edge over John McCain on the last day of campaigning for the most dramatic presidential vote in a generation.

But McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, was adamant he would confound the pollsters to stage a shock comeback and wrench victory from the African-American Obama's grasp on Tuesday.

The 47-year-old Democrat stressed the historic nature of his quest to be America's first black president, striking an optimistic tone as fresh polls gave him a wide lead and heaped further pressure on McCain .

"This is a defining moment in our history," Obama wrote in an article published Monday in The Wall Street Journal.

"Tomorrow, I ask you to write our nation's next great chaptert If you give me your vote, we won't just win this election-together, we will change this country and change the world."

McCain was defiant. "My opponent is measuring the drapes at the White House," he said, as he wrapped up a frenzied day of campaigning with a midnight rally in Miami. "They may not know it, but the Mac is back! And we're going to win this election," he added, to deafening cheers.

The Republican was to launch a frenetic dash through at least seven states on the marathon campaign's final day. Obama was to blitz through Florida, North Carolina and Virginia bidding to storm Republican bastions and turn them over to his side.

On stage in Cleveland, Ohio, Sunday evening after a rousing set from rocker Bruce Springsteen, Obama confessed his delight to be rejoined on the trail by his wife Michelle and two young daughters. "Everything looks a little better," he told 80,000 supporters at a rally in drenching rain in Ohio on Sunday. "Everybody's got a smile on their face," he said. "You start thinking that maybe we might be able to win an election on November 4."

Obama lacerated McCain on the stricken US economy and said his rival's policies would extend President George W. Bush's legacy of financial crisis and "war without end" in Iraq, while neglecting resurgent militancy in Afghanistan. McCain also attacked his rival on the economy, in his own Wall Street Journal article. "Senator Obama wants to raise taxes and restrict trade," he charged. "The last time America did that in a bad economy it led to the Great Depression." The final pre-election poll of Gallup-USA Today published Monday gave Obama a yawning lead of 11 points -- 55 percent to 44 for McCain.

Meanwhile, months before Tuesday's election, John McCain and Barack Obama were secretly planning for a job only one of them will face-transitioning their political campaigns into a governing machine. The new president will have a transition of just 77 days from his election to his inuguration to slow the ship of state, replace thousands of government officials and chart a new course.

Since the first transition, in 1797, from president George Washington to John Adams, the peaceful handover of power has become ever more choreographed with each successive administration, especially since World War II. But the 2009 cycle, from President George W. Bush to his successor will be more fraught than usual, with the United States mired in a financial crisis and with more than 150,000 soliders in combat abroad.

"You have to go back to 1933 to find a transition as equally challenging as this one," said Darrell West, director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, citing the transfer of power to Franklin D. Roosevelt during a banking crisis.