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But something keeps gnawing at Obama's supporters and enthralling political spectators. It is a sense of unease and even dread about the "Obamaland" riddle. It is causing fascination among political pundits. Could this election turn out to be a repeat of the most momentous political upset in American history, which occurred in the 1948 race for the White House between Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Thomas Dewey?

"Dewey Defeats Truman" was the banner headline on the front page of the first edition of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, the morning after election day. The only problem was, it was Truman, not Dewey, who had won the elections in a landslide. He won 303 electoral-college votes, whereas Dewey received 189, and Truman had nearly 2 million more popular votes than did Dewey. And it turned out it was not only the Chicago Tribune that committed a blunder that morning.

On election night, November 2, Dewey, his family and campaign staff gathered confidently in New York and sat up all night in anticipation of a big win, preparing for their victory lap. Truman went to a hotel in a small resort town in Missouri and went to sleep, early. At midnight, he awoke to hear a leading radio commentator announce he, Truman, was leading the popular vote but that he could not possibly win. Truman went back to sleep.

Throughout the campaign season, Truman's popularity was consistently sinking, and he was trailing badly in the polls before election day. His campaign was perpetually "cash-strapped", a euphemism for being broke. At the same time, his party was affected by a serious three-way split, and some of his party honchos at various times initiated a "Dump Truman" campaign in hopes of picking a more popular candidate.

Ordinarily, these factors would be enough to sink any political candidate. Truman's standing was so poor that some pollsters at the time were so confident of Dewey's victory, they stopped polling voters weeks before the election. Even his wife had private doubts that her man could win. The only person left to think that Truman had any chance to win was perhaps Truman himself.

In sharp contrast, Dewey appeared unbeatable. Top Republican handlers believed all their candidate had to do to play it safe was avoid major mistakes. This strategy was reflected in the generality of, and vagueness of, Dewey's messages. They contained optimistic assertions of the vacuous type, like: "You know that your future is still ahead of you." Throughout the campaign, Dewey remained aloof and did not respond directly to Truman's attacks.

Being a man who had nothing to lose but the loss itself, Truman, in the final weeks of the campaign, staged a fiery, no-holds-barred, "give 'em hell Harry" straight-talking, whistle-stop tour of rural America. In six weeks, Truman travelled more than 30,000 miles and gave 355 speeches. He fought as an underdog (and God knows, Americans love to cheer for the underdog), talked directly to the people, answered questions and introduced his family. He was friendly, one with the people, and they turned out in their thousands to listen to him. Yet, despite his perseverance, hard work and surging poll rating, few, if any, believed he had a fighting chance.

Fast forward to 2008, and the picture looks familiar. We are seeing the return of a feisty and defiant John McCain and his "diva", "whack job", "rogue" running mate (names given to her by the McCain campaign staff). They are running through all the key, must-win states, appealing to the fundamental fear of voters about who Obama really is. These last-minute pitches seem to be gaining traction and have cut into Obama's lead. To what extent they will affect the outcome on November 4 is anyone's guess.

And then there is the "Bradley and Wilder Effect", which is extremely hard to gauge. The term was derived from Tom Bradley and Douglas Wilder, both African Americans, who ran in the California and Virginia gubernatorial races, respectively. Both were defeated by their white opponents despite being ahead in the polls before the election.

The theory is a significant share of white voters will say they plan to vote for a black candidate, but then vote against him. Racism is still perceived as politically incorrect, and most people will not want to go public with their true sentiment. Phrases like "Obama scares me" resonate among "uncommitted" independents, Republicans and, yes, Democrats, many of whom may cast their vote elsewhere for reasons that are so vague, they ring untrue even to themselves. "If Obama were white, this would have been a landslide," confess some voters.

It is like many parents say: they are not against interracial marriage, they just would not want their children to be the groundbreakers.

Since Truman, there have been only two instances in the last 14 elections in which the candidate ahead in the Gallup polls a week or so before the election did not win the national popular vote: Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George W Bush in 2000. There is only one candidate who trailed in the polls but went on to win the popular and Electoral College votes: Ronald Reagan. With less than a week left in the 2008 campaign and with Obama 4-7 points ahead among traditional likely voters, most political pundits still think the presidency is out of McCain's reach. But the sense of unease is still palpable.

Voters go to the polling booth carrying with them the imprint of hope and fear, prejudice, assumption, value, expectation and preference. Many of these feelings may or may not have anything to do with reason. When I was studying philosophy, I learned if we assume human beings are fully rational and logical, no political vote can be cast and that democracy is problematic, if not impossible. With that, I would say the chance of witnessing a Truman moment in the 2008 US presidential election may be the equivalent of a coin toss.