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Friday, November 21, 2008, 01.48 PM

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W. SCOTT THOMPSON: Tears for a moment they never thought they'd see

W. Scott Thompson
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The Stanford undergraduate encouraged an endless number of them to get out and make their votes count.

One middle-aged black woman was celebrating the recent graduation of her daughter from an integrated state college, and the intern (yes, yours truly) commented that maybe the younger sister could go to Wellesley College, the posh women's school that would graduate Hillary Rodham eight years later.

"No," the black mother said. "That will come in my grand-daughter's lifetime; not in mine, hers, or yours, young man. We mustn't move too fast."

If you'd been through that, and probably a good half of the over-50 crowd in Denver had, given that 24 per cent were African-American anyway, you the reader can understand why reporters were taken aback by the number of tears being shed as the moment arrived when Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.

My Filipino partner was respectful as I joined the blubbering crowd, sitting in Manila. Imagine, I was thinking, had I told that nice lady that in her lifetime -- and she may be living, in her late 80s now -- a black man would be nominated for president. It is just too much to fathom in one sitting.

Okay, okay. Lots of things have changed. Countries became independent much earlier than envisaged back then; men walked on the moon; the Internet connected us and the iPod made us feel classy. But a black in the White House? That's against the order of things.

America had been, yes, a beacon, land of freedom, land of milk-and-honey, so many things to so many.

But it has been running out of gas in recent years. Rich countries, like rich people, get smug. "We must be doing something right, look how rich we are" became the unstated pre-mise.

Trace it since John F. Kennedy as we lost our grip, fought needless wars, and lived on bloated budgets provided by surplus trade partners bartering our security umbrella for our endless deficits.

That didn't mean we had to elect a president who'd barely ever left the national borders and who had to be briefed on the location of countries we invaded.

But we did, and watched our country's standing plummet all over the world.

The seemingly endless goodwill that the Marshall Plan, never-ending scholarship and visitor programmes and innovative laboratories provided eroded and finally just came to a halt in recent years. The tank was empty.

Yet America didn't lose its capacity to reinvent itself, to provide space for ambitious politicians with a vision to gain a perch, make a statement, and create once again the hope that this remarkable country with its vast bounty can once again stand for something and mean something for the rest of the world, apart from marauding armies and bloated budgets.

So here was Mahar Mahangas, head of the Social Weather Stations in Manila, Asia's preeminent polling group, telling me over the weekend that from a scientific point of view, the election is all but over.

The electoral college requires 270 votes to win.

The best polls, Dr Mahangas said, rate 190 of them from "safe states" for Obama, with 70 more leaning in his direction.

In the toss-up category, Obama only needs small change to lock it in. John McCain starts from well below that and faces almost insuperable odds against winning.

Remember that Obama won the nomination in the first instance from a calculated and brilliant strategy in lining up caucus states. His national electoral plan resembles it.

Remember that "people" don't elect the American president. Delegates to the electoral college do that. Each state gets as many votes as it has congressmen and senators.

What that means is that, since every state big and small has two senators, little states (some with only one congressman) with three electoral votes have vastly more weight in electing the president.

Alaska, for example, with fewer than a million people gets one electoral vote per 3,000. Californians with 55 votes get almost exactly half the power in their choice.

It comes from the early era when "states" were the lions.

The federal government was a mouse. It was the best "nationally-minded" delegates to the Philadelphia convention could accomplish. It's not going to change, for what incentive do the small states have to give up this advantage that supposedly protects their marginal status?

New York has 31, Pennsylvania 21, together with California making 103 as a difficult-to-overcome start for Obama, who has insurmountable leads in all three.

Add his iron-clad advantages in Illinois and elsewhere, and he would be forgiven for starting to pack his bags for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And since during the nomination we were looking not only at what came before but what we now have good reason to assume is coming on Nov 4, perhaps our tears will be understood.