how close is this election, really?

We are primed for a close race. The Democrats have nominated a candidate with some serious in-built weaknesses and the Republicans have found the only candidate that might pull 2008 out of the fire for them.

If you take a look at some of the popular vote and electoral college projections floating around at the moment, however, you'd have to make Obama a strong favourite.

Of course, such projections are based on polls, and polls can change.

But the fact is that all the big historical forces are on the side of the Democrat candidate - the key one being a two-term, extremely unpopular Republican incumbent. Put it this way: if McCain wins in November it will be an upset of massive proportions, unprecedented in the last hundred years.