Campaign Trail

Phoenix winds down

• Matthew Price
• 4 Nov 08, 11:23 PM GMT

The McCain campaign "Victory" party is going to be very different from the Obama one. Here in Phoenix we expect between 6,000 to 8,000 people to attend.

Only five TV teams are allowed into the main area where John McCain will be. One from each of the main US networks. That was decided several weeks ago, and despite the protests from the local TV channels and international broadcasters the McCain campaign have not budged.

Did they decide a few weeks back to protect their candidate? It will prove to have been short-sighted if he can indeed pull off the comeback of his life.

Both McCain and Sarah Palin are on their way here now, we are told. John McCain's home (one of them anyway) is just a short distance away. He'll be in this complex, though sealed away from most of the journalists and lower level party officials here, within hours I'd have thought.

As for the atmosphere, I'd describe it as solid and calm. They've done all they can. They have nothing to prove. I would imagine most in the country are expecting them to lose. The pressure is off.

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Down to the wire at McCain HQ

• Matthew Price
• 4 Nov 08, 06:14 PM GMT

The phone-bank at McCain HQ in Phoenix is filling up, with volunteers sitting at desks, calling potential voters.

They're ringing to see if McCain supporters have already voted and if not to get them to the polling stations. They're also ringing other voters to try to persuade them to switch sides at this last minute.

On the walls are life size pictures of John McCain, and on the front desk a roll of "Joe" stickers, which have been worn on T-shirts at McCain rallies across this country in recent days.

There's a sense in the room that every little vote counts, and that every minute spent trying to shore up those votes could be crucial. On the door is a quote from Orson Swindle, a life-long friend of John McCain's and a fellow POW in Vietnam.

One of the tortures Mr Swindle endured was sleep deprivation. On one occasion he was kept awake for 10 days. The quote reminds the party workers that however tired they may be, it's nothing in comparison to that.

I remarked to one woman that she must be exhausted. "Not at all," she replied brightly, and on message.

Update, 21:10GMT:

The polling station where John McCain cast his vote this morning was quiet at lunchtime. Perhaps 10 people arrived while I was there, chatting to one local republican party worker.

He worked on George W Bush's campaign four years ago. He said he expected more people to turn out later in the day, as offices close and the workday comes to an end.

Voters in Arizona have been told that if they reach the end of the voting queue by seven pm local time, they will be allowed to vote, however long that queue is. Close of ballots may be delayed somewhat if there's a late surge in voting.

The junior republican official also told me he'd be coming to John McCain's evening party here at the lush and extravagant Biltmore Resort in Phoenix. "I'll be there for the....um...well, victory speech I suppose. Or maybe the concession speech."

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McCain's state - voting begins

• Matthew Price
• 4 Nov 08, 04:26 PM GMT

Voting has started in John McCain's home state, a state which has not been kind to previous presidential candidates with Arizona links.

"Tomorrow, we're going to reverse that unhappy tradition and I'm going to be the president of the United States," he said at his final rally, which was actually held just after midnight in Prescott, Arizona.

McCain's going to hold one final rally today, in Colorado, and then he'll pop in to visit staffers in New Mexico. Then he'll come back to Phoenix, and, like the rest of his nation, wait.

Update, 17:36 GMT:

"I've just spoken to the co chair of the republican party in John McCain's home state of Arizona. A man called Wes Gullett who told me that the republican party is in a dreadful mess. He said the republican party of Abraham Lincoln had a soul but that the republican party today had lost that and that they need to find it again.

He did insist as most republicans in his position will on a day like this, that he genuinely believes John McCain can still win this election. He said if the republicans had had any other presidential candidate than John McCain it would be "a massacre". They would be at least 20 percentage points down in his opinion.

So he said John McCain can still win this election but the look in his eyes also suggested that he believes the republicans could be in for a rough night."

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Fighting to the end

• Matthew Price
• 4 Nov 08, 03:38 AM GMT

Phoenix, Arizona: By the time the sun rises over the dusty, dry landscape around Phoenix, Arizona, on election day, the sand will have run out.

There will be no more time for an October (or November) surprise. There will be no more time to sway the voters. There will be no more time full-stop.

The McCain latex masks will be marked down in price. The Rocky theme tune CD that he strides out to will be put back in its case. Joe the Plumber will vanish down the plug hole.

All there will be left is the voter, a curtain drawn behind them, deciding the fate of the man who, in his own well-worn phrase, has devoted his life to his country since the age of 17.

This is a man who by his own admission has lived in the shadow of his father and grandfather for his entire life. A man whose autobiography - written some time ago - suggests he may not yet have fulfilled his own aspirations to honour, as he sees it, the family name.

Perhaps that is why, in the face of such overwhelming odds, he does not give up. There may have been moments where his campaign seemed to change tack with alarming regularity, suggesting to some a lack of leadership at the helm. Yet John McCain has kept his belief alive, just as he did all those years ago as a prisoner-of-war.

So today, as that sun rises over Arizona, I imagine he will look out the window, stretch the arms that remain stiff from the torture he once endured, and relish his last chance to draw a few people over to his side. He is a determined man. That much has become clear in the past 18 months.

As John McCain's plane flew into Indianapolis for one of his last rallies, and taxied right to the edge of a crowd of perhaps 2,000, I thought back to those pictures from a year ago, of the senator for Arizona wheeling his own bags through an airport. His campaign was out of money, he was a loser, a no-chancer.

Yet in Indiana, under hot November sunshine, as "the Mac" strode on to the steps, and walked down towards the podium, he was most certainly back. He is enjoying these final hours.

Can he do it? He has two (slim) chances as I see it.

The first is that his campaign manager is actually right when he says that in some states, where McCain is still competitive (Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, places like that) the undecided voter will turn out for him in the end. This assumes that the polls are right when they say that anything up to 9% of voters in these states are undecided. It also assumes they will go to the polling station. It assumes too they will vote there for McCain.

The second is that voters have been lying to the pollsters. That the polls are wrong. That race will be the deciding factor in this election. Americans like to be seen (in public) to back a winner. If the latent racism in this country is greater than I think it is, then we may be in for a surprise.

That is certainly the fear of the African-American man who helped to load our 23 bags of television kit on to the conveyor belt at Indianapolis airport a few hours ago. He had voted early, last week.

When I told him that I was following John McCain, he paused, then - to a giggle from the check-in women - said: "How's the old man holding up?"

"I think he's losing at the moment," I replied.

"I've been in America too long to believe it until I see it," he said.

So although it wouldn't please the staff at check-in, John McCain does - in the minds of some - have a chance left.

I suspect though that Mr McCain, a man who is so committed to his country, who believes in its sense of fairness, its honour, its dignity, would take no joy in winning an election, simply because his fellow citizens did not want to vote for a black man.

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