After an unprecedented amount of money spent on a Presidential campaign, culminating with a $4-million, 30-minute ad buy on seven different networks during primetime hours, Barack Obama has undoubtedly seized all the momentum of this 2008 Presidential election.
“Political campaigns are all about exposure and momentum, there is no doubt that heading into the final days of this election Obama has both” says chief oddsmaker Blake Edwards of Logans.com.
Obama has nearly doubled John McCain in fund raising, raising nearly $650 million which dwarfs McCain’s $360 million. No more was that money advantage evident than on “Big Wednesday,” when Obama began to close out the presidential campaign with his primetime pitch and leaving McCain to respond with just one interview on CNN’s Larry King. Obama didn’t stop there, his night culminated with a rally in Florida where he shared the stage for the first time during his campaign with former President Bill Clinton.
“Florida is considered a battle ground state and Obama and Clinton campaigning together in a state where Clinton is loved pretty much clinches that state going blue,” says Edwards. A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of likely voters taken Oct. 25-27 found Obama leading McCain 50 percent to 43 percent in Florida.
While Obama has all the momentum and money, John McCain isn’t laying down just yet. Oddsmakers had Obama set at -700 last week, but his price has jumped to -1000 since.
''The pundits have written us off several times before. They were wrong before and they are wrong now,'' McCain said Wednesday in Florida.
No one can question McCain’s toughness nor his ability to comeback. He’s been written off several times in this election, only to prove everyone wrong. But many experts believe the only way this maverick can win on Tuesday would be what experts call the “Bradley Effect.” The Bradley Effect is named after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and his losing the 1982 California governor’s race. Bradley was leading by a large margin going into Election Day, but the polls were wrong and Bradley ended up losing. The theory was that polling was wrong because some voters, who did not want to appear bigoted, said they voted for Bradley even though they did not.
"It leaves a question mark over this race, and we won't have the final answer until the votes are counted," said David Gergen, a senior political analyst for CNN.
“The closer we're getting to the actual election, the more and more it looks like Obama is the winner," Edwards says. "There's no chance for an "October Surprise" and all the polls are in, now it’s just a matter of if the polls are right. Obama is now a prohibitive favorite at -1000. Betting slowly started to come in more and more over the weekend. We've been pretty aggressive moving off money as well as moving off the mood and sense throughout the country that Obama will win on Tuesday.”
“Right now there's so much money on this event that the tens of thousands of dollars that came in over the weekend doesn't really affect the trends that much. It’s about decimal points if anything.”
As of Monday 54 percent of the money is on Obama, with 46 percent down on McCain.