Be sure to vote on Tuesday

The Karl Rove & Co. final poll for presidential race is here.
It shows a 338-200 electoral college win for Obama, with seven states going for McCain by less than 4 percent. Only one of Obama's states is that close in the Rove ranking - Florida, which wouldn't make a difference in the outcome.
Here's the daily tracking poll from pollster.com, which aggregates all the polls:

It doesn't look good for John McCain or the Republicans who may have to weather a Democratic tsunami on Tuesday.
On the other hand, strange things happen in politics, so pollsters and pundits could be proven wrong by the time all the votes are counted.
And even if Obama's margin proves as wide as the polls show, there are lots of other important races on the ballot around the country and right here in Bristol.
I hope voters will take the time to consider the merits of all the candidates and not just blindly vote for one party or the other. There are good, solid people who may deserve a vote from the party you don't normally support.
So, please, go vote on Tuesday, but vote with your brain engaged.
A lot of people over many generations have fought -- in war, on the streets, and in the halls of power -- to ensure that all of us have the opportunity to pick our leaders in this great democracy.
That young man from Bristol that I wrote about last week, Corporal Matt Lavoie, who is trying to regain the use of his right hand after a bombing in Iraq that nearly killed him, put his life on the line for this country and everything it stands, or, in short, for us. The least we can do to honor his sacrifice, and those of so many others, is to do our duty and go to the polls to exercise our right to vote with all the wisdom we can muster.
We'll never be happy with everyone who wins, of course, but we can all take pride in our ability to choose the direction our country will take. And we can all try, at the end of the day, to give the winners a chance, to see if they can make good on their promises.
If they can't, there's always next time.
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com