We do not know.
Four weeks from now, we will vote. Young people and African Americans will vote in far greater numbers than ever. Registration is off the charts.
A friend says that her African-American election district keeps running out of voter registration forms, and prospective voters are being encouraged to register on line.
I would like to predict a landslide. It could happen. But we do not know.
But we need a landslide. If 80 percent of the population think the country is on the wrong track, why can't we have an election where 80 percent vote for Barack and 20 for McCain?
Well, of course, that never happens. Reagan got 70 percent in 1984, Johnson 63 percent in 1964, Nixon 61 percent in 1972.
But if 80 percent vote for Barack, and the right-wing hackers and thugs and Diebold-like pro-GOP corporations that furnish the voting machines cut 10 percent off that vote, we still have a landslide like 1984.
Eight years ago, a close election allowed the neocons to steal the presidency, ushering in the worst eight years in our history: the Bush coup.
There of course have been other horrendous times. But they were about something important: The Civil War was about ending slavery and saving the Union. The Depression ushered in the New Deal. World War II defeated fascism, at least for a few decades, until Bush 43.
But the Bush coup has made our country hated and feared and ridiculed, a rogue state, a preemptive war maker, a serial torturer, and a financial basket case. It has given global warming an eight-year-long free pass, destroying much of the natural world as we knew it.
So the first thing is, we must win in a landslide equal to 1964 or 1984 or 1972. Only if we win incontestably, can we not be robbed again by the Diebolds and Katherine Harrises and James Bakers of the world.
Obama v. McCain must be only electoral, not judicial.
Barack seems better and better. He is no pure flower of the military-industrial complex like McCain.
Instead, he is someone more "like us" than anyone who has run for president and won since Andrew Jackson or Lincoln or, well, Bill Clinton.
With his background as community organizer, constitutional scholar, writer, legislator, orator, someone smart, wise, well-balanced, with a sense of humor, Barack is a great candidate and I think he could be a great president
If he wins, and if there is a filibuster-proof Senate, if we win in a landslide, we must present our ideas and plans.
For there will be a flowering of ideas and plans to be realized.
Now, what happens after this Democratic, progressive landslide?
The bailout will cost two trillion dollars. The war will cost three billion, according to Joseph Stiglitz.
That's one big bail of kale, but if we have a landslide election, we can make those who benefited from the war and the bailout pay us back.
The mainstream commentariat say that the next president will have to cut back on his plans in order to pay off the debt.
But if we have a landslide and we rethink the priorities, ways can be found.
We can put in place programs that pay quickly for themselves by creating jobs and a new tax base: green energy, unprivatized health care, ending the outsourcing of governmental functions to crony capitalists.
This is the most important election ever.
If we allow the right wing, the neocons, to steal another election, as they did in 2000, the country is finished. Maybe the world will be too.
That is why a landslide is the best chance for the survival of our country, of even the human race and the natural world around us.