Americans vote to elect 1st black or oldest 1st-term president

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (Yonhap) -- Millions of Americans went to polling stations
across the country Tuesday to possibly elect the country's first-ever black
president.

Out of the total registered voters of about 153 million, nearly 30 million people
had already cast absentee ballots by Monday, election authorities said,
predicting more than 100 million voters will show up at the polling places to
mark the highest voter turnout in history, possibly more than 60 percent.
Most opinion polls show Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama leading
Republican rival John McCain by several percentage points.
Appearing on the CBS "Early Morning Show" Tuesday, McCain admitted he was an
underdog, but still expressed confidence he could win several swing states that
may bring him the 270 electoral votes needed for the presidency.
"I think these battleground states have now closed up, almost all of them, and I
believe there's a good scenario where we can win," he said.
On the question of how he will compete with Obama, who had a crowd of 90,000 at a
rally in northern Virginia on Monday, McCain said his running mate, Sarah Palin,
"had 20,000 to 23,000 on a very hot day in northern Virginia, too."
Democrats have not carried Virginia in a presidential election since 1964,
although the state elected a Democratic governor and senator in recent years with
the influx of young students and tech-savvy professionals in northern Virginia,
adjacent to Washington, D.C.
If elected, Palin will be the first female vice president, and 72-year-old McCain
the oldest first-term president and first Vietnam veteran to hold the office.
The Arizona senator voted at a Phoenix church and went back to the campaign trail
in Colorado and New Mexico in a breakaway from tradition.
He said he will continue stumping "until the polls close" to fight off Obama,
whom he described as being "on the far left part of the liberal philosophy in
America."
Obama, for his part, flew to Indianapolis immediately after voting at a Chicago
polling station along with his wife, Michelle, in his last-minute effort to take
Indiana, another traditionally Republican state. No Democratic presidential
nominee has won in Indiana since 1964.
Obama said McCain will repeat the economic policy of the President George W.
Bush, whom he described as ruining the economy. He also said the U.S. wants to
regain global leadership, which he said was severely undermined under the
eight-year Bush administration.
McCain, meanwhile, denounced Obama as too inexperienced to deal with the current
economic crisis and naive enough to pull out U.S. forces from Iraq to jeopardize
the global war on terrorism.
Some experts and media analysts expect the winner will become apparent in the
early evening, soon after polls close in the eastern battleground states of
Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Others, however, predict that ballot counting may last until early Wednesday due
to record voter turnout and a close race in several key states.
Obama plans an election night party in Chicago's Grant Park attended by hundreds
of thousands of supporters, while McCain will host a party at the Biltmore Hotel
in Phoenix.
Also at stake are 35 Senate seats, 435 House seats and 11 gubernatorial posts.
Buoyed by Obama's popularity, Democrats expect gains in the Senate from the
current 49 up to the "super 60" seats that can prevent a filibuster. Democrats
currently have 236 seats in the House of Representatives.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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