Sunday morning, Real Clear Politics adjusted their prediction for the presidential race, moving New Hampshire back to "Solid Obama" from "Leaning Obama" (the fourth rating change for the Granite State since October 1st).

"We're a few points down and the pundits, of course, as they have four or five times, have written us off," Sen. McCain said. "We've got them just where we want them."

"The metrics of this election argue strongly that this campaign is over," writes Charlie Cook of both the National Journal and Cook Political Report. "[I]t's only the memory of many an election that seemed over but wasn't that is keeping us from closing the book mentally on this one."

With Sen. Obama back on the trail from visiting his ailing grandmother, both campaigns are beginning their closing arguments, hoping to make it to the finish line.

"[T]he endgame strategies of the two campaigns have come to resemble the candidates themselves," write Mark Z. Barabak and Maeve Reston for the Los Angeles Times. "McCain restless, scrappy and used to fighting from a crouch; Obama disciplined, deliberate and serenely confident."

Both candidates will begin their closing arguments in Ohio on Monday; Sen. Obama's campaign is preparing reporters for a major speech in Canton, Ohio.

"Senator Obama will tell voters that after twenty-one months and three debates, Senator McCain still has not been able to tell the American people a single major thing he’d do differently from George Bush when it comes to the economy," per the Illinois democrat's campaign in a Sunday statement. "Obama will ask Americans to help him change this country, and say that in just one week, they can choose an economy that rewards work and creates new jobs and fuels prosperity from the bottom-up, they can choose to invest in health care for our families and education for our kids and renewable energy for our future, and they can choose hope over fear, unity over division and the promise of change over the power of the status quo."

Sen. McCain began his final pitch on Meet the Press on Sunday, where he established economic policy differences as his theme for the next week.

"[W]e just figured it out with "Joe the Plumber;" Americans just figured it out. He wants to spread the wealth around," Sen. McCain told NBC News' Tom Brokaw. "He wants to raise taxes in a time of economic difficulties."

This election, the Arizona Republican argues, is a choice between "Joe the Plumber" (himself and working Americans) and "Joe the Biden."

"All I know is that Senator Obama's record is very clear," Sen. McCain continued on Meet the Press. "He started out in the lefthand lane of American politics and has remained there. He has been judged the most liberal United States senator. . . . Joe the Biden is number three."

"The surprising thing," about this argument, says Newsweek's Andrew Romano, "at least in light of his earlier sallies, may be that it's worth sticking to."

Sen. McCain prepared for the final leg of the campaign with a bus tour through central Florida last week, named for Joe the Plumber -- although "without its namesake, the icon of his campaign's invigorated antitax movement who has conspicuously refused entreaties to appear with McCain," per Sasha Issenberg for The Boston Globe. (Although to be fair to Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher, he says "I did not receive an invitation" to be on the Florida tour.)

With the end in sight, Charlie Cook says this election is set to be the second of two "back to back GOP train wrecks."

"In 2006, congressional Republicans were badly punished over the controversy surrounding both the decision to fight in Iraq and the way in which the war was being conducted," Cook argues. "But in this election, Republicans are not being punished for the war. Indeed, the war is hardly an issue. Republicans are being punished because of the economy. . . ."

But the danger for Democrats while the train -- or perhaps the bus -- enters the final tunnel, is getting too comfortable with what appears to be a lead, say political thinkers.

"That's dangerous," says Jeffrey Clarke '10, a democrat and politics major at Saint Anselm College. "People will say he has got it locked up and won't go out and vote for him."

Republicans also have to continue campaigning, and possibly step up their game -- although Sen. McCain is understood to thrive on being the underdog.

"They’ve overlooked though the minor detail of earning your confidence and your trust and winning your votes." Palin said, "And I know that judging by media coverage, it does seem that the coronation is already set, but as for John McCain and me, we don’t take any vote for granted, and we are not assuming that we have your vote, we are respectfully asking for it."

Whether or not there is truth to the claim, there is some humour to it -- Sen. Obama joked to a Fort Collins, Colorado, crowd, "Now, I especially want you to vote early if you're voting for me. If you're voting for the other guy, you should just wait until Nov. 5."

"Ha, ha, ha. I'm just teasing," he said. "It's actually Nov. 4 is the election."

This article was published on October 27, 2008 on the website of WMUR.