I just wanted everyone to be able to watch this again, but without the cold dread about it not happening.

Click on “MORE” to generate a random Barackism from Slate’s Encyclopedia Baracktannica, a handy reference for the next eight years even though some of the terms were added during the primary.

Obama in Jacksonville Nov. 3

Tin foil hat time: It would be considered paranoiac or, at best, extremely cynical, to suggest that people at the top of the Bush-Cheney administration engineered events — or, as Karl Rove once put it, “created a reality” — in which both the deaths of U.S. service members and the price of gasoline dropped precipitously just in time for voting in the 2008 election to begin.
Imagine the political landscape right now, less than 48 hours before voting ends, if the collapse of the financial industry in late September had not upended John McCain’s campaign. With Iraq and gas prices no longer issues driving the campaign, the odds in the presidential race would heavily favor the Republican ticket.
On the other hand, the only other explanation — that it is just a happy coincidence — is even harder to believe. Having studied the tactics of the Bush-Cheney regime for nearly eight years, we know that secretly manipulating events for their own political benefit is the rare thing this crowd does well.

Here are two facts:

US Deaths in Iraq Plunge to Wartime Low in October:

U.S. deaths in Iraq fell in October to their lowest monthly level of the war, matching the record low of 13 fatalities suffered in July. Iraqi deaths fell to their lowest monthly levels of the year. Eight of the 13 Americans died in combat, most of them in northern Iraq where al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgent groups remain active. The U.S. military suffered 25 deaths in September and 23 in August.

Gas Prices Below $3 in Some Areas:

Some areas are now reporting average gasoline prices below the $3-a-gallon threshold as price continue to fall in the area, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California’s Weekend Gas Watch.

The average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $3.019 per gallon, which is 20.4 cents less than last week, 59 cents lower than last month, and 12 cents under last year…

“For the last two weeks, we’ve seen drops of 3-4 cents per day,” Auto Club spokesperson Jeffrey Spring said in a statement. “The downward pace has certainly accelerated, and it’s difficult to tell when or where it will stop.”

Imagine the political landscape right now, less than 48 hours before voting ends, if the collapse of the financial industry in late September had not upended John McCain’s campaign. In that scenario, with U.S. fatalities at new lows and gas prices no longer a source of worry for voters, the odds in the presidential race would heavily favor the Republican ticket. At worst, even with Sarah Palin weighing McCain down, polls would probably show him winning by a slim majority.

So is this state of affairs a grand conspiracy thwarted by “real” reality — or just a felicitous happenstance that favors the interests of the American people over those of the ruling class? Like so much else that has transpired over the past eight years, we will probably never know.

It isn’t just because someone kicked the crap out of my Obama yard sign while I was out on Halloween night. It’s not only because the Obama campaign announced that 20 months of blood, sweat, and tears on their part would end…in Jacksonville (could there be a worse bad omen?). It’s not even the poll in my local paper on Thursday that showed McCain beating Obama here by 63 percent to Obama’s 31.

I think the reason there’s a lead weight in my stomach, and the bellies of other Democrats in my town, is all the McCain/Palin signs and bumper stickers. They’ve been sprouting like mushrooms after a spring rain, in direct proportion to Obama’s poll gains. And even though I know many of them are bogus — like the one that says, “Another Democrat for McCain” placed in front of the Republican campaign headquarters — each one makes me feel like someone moved a dark cloud over my head and held it there.

I’m worried, worried mainly that we are in for an unpleasant surprise on Tuesday night. All the polls show Obama with a comfortable lead over McCain (except the ones taken in Northeast Florida of course). But the problem with all the polls is their weighting systems. In case you don’t usually follow these things, the way it works is that more Democrats than Republicans are asked who they’re voting for. Pollsters are doing this, they say, because there are more registered and/or likely Democratic voters. Let Rasmussen explain it:

As we have noted many times, there is a disagreement within the polling industry as to whether or not polling firms should “weight” or adjust their sample to reflect a specific mix of Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters.

Rasmussen Reports does weight our sample to a set of partisan targets and bases those targets on surveys conducted in preceding months. Entering the month of June, our targets for the month were set so that the sample would include 9.44% more Democrats than Republicans.

Did you catch that last part? Nearly 10 percent more Democrats were asked if they were voting for Obama or McCain than were Republicans. And most polls — with weighting — give Obama only a five-point lead right now.

And yes, I understand that almost all the undecideds would have to make their minds up for McCain for him to have a chance but…I think he has that chance. Again, you’re talking to someone who lives in a place where some people still have their “W ’04” bumper stickers proudly in place.

Please folks, if you support Obama, let nothing stand in your way on Tuesday to keep you from casting your vote. Do not for one second think he’ll be O.K. without you. He won’t.

Is it Wednesday yet?