McCain's had his oven chips

Let's look at the big picture of US Presidential history. Obama was a shoe-in it seems, a dead-cert. McCain hadn't any hope remaining based on historical precedent, no chips left in his oven?
This was the 55th US Presidential election. Obama and McCain were competing to be the forty-third individual elected US President (44th Presidency) and to take the helm in leading the Free World out of Global Crisis. In may not be obvious to many, and comforting to some, but, with very few exceptions, all candidates lose who contest a US presidential campaign to succeed a president of the same party, unless the candidate is the outgoing Vice-president (happened 16 times beginning with the seven elected Presidents after the first, George Washington, who each had served as Vice-President or Secretary of State or both). The only exceptions to this that offered hope for McCain were Republicans, William Taft, Rutherford Hayes, his predecessor Ulysses Grant, and Democrat Herbert Hoover. But McCain is no U.S.Grant - for one quality not commonly known, Grant was very well read, a voracious reader of books, novels and histories as well as being a victorious General, which McCain is not, albeit a Vietnam War hero. Hayes lost the popular vote, but was controversially voted in 8/7 by an Electoral Commission of 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats. after a bitter dispute, bribery and fraud in the Electoral College. Could McCain steal the election by some such shenanigans; most probably not? Taft had been Secretary for War and was “a Progressive” and endorsed by the popular outgoing President Roosevelt (T). McCain could not match up to that though he tried to, but given Bush's deep unpopularity this was a losing proposition. Hoover beat a Republican Party divided internally by religion, having nominated a Catholic Candidate, Alfred Smith. McCain did hope (by his team or supporters employing McCarthy-style slurs) that the Democrats could be similarly divided between Clinton (H) and Obama, or divided over Obama’s race, middle name or partial anagram of his last name, or maybe by the fact that he is not obviously of Irish, Scottish, English, Dutch or Scots-Irish stock that are overwhelmingly dominant choices as presidential candidates, successful or otherwise, among whom Scots-Irish are pre-eminent by far, having been elected 18 times! Born in Panama McCain is, of course, Scots-Irish (with some French and Spanish). And, as it turns out, Obama had an ace up his sleeve by virtue of Irish roots on his Mother's side of the family.
There are those who value roots and today after Obama's victory these include Kenyans, Indonesians, and the Irish. McCain traces his line past his famous father and grandfather, both US Admirals, to a long descent from Saint David I, King of Scotland (d.1153 youngest son of King Malcolm Canmore, who killed King Macbeth, and St Margaret, descendent of the Hungarian Agatha) and from David’s grandson William the Lion, King of Scotland (d.1214). And he is also descended from 'Longshanks' the English King Edward I Duke of Aquitaine (d.1307), which does not play well with fans of the moie 'Braveheart', and Eleanor of Provence plus French descent from Louis VII, King of France (d.1180), and Spanish antecedents too from Saint Fernando III, King of Castille (d.1252), though this did not play well with the Hispanic vote who voted 65/35 for Obama. (Kingship is not new among the antecedents of US Presidents and candidates for the post; Clinton is in direct descent from a long line of Scottish gypsy kings). These days Royalty may actually count with Republicans, even bible-belters who voted 76/24, men 52/48, and whites 57/43 for McCain. These popular majorities in important oting segments were countered by first-time voters who voted 75/25, blacks 95/5, women 58/42, Jews 77/27, and American muslims and Red Indians both voting 90/10 for Obama. The Irish vote, worth one sixth of the total, seems to have split evenly, however, between McCain and Obama.
Obama is also blue-green Ulster-Scotch-Irish, if not so blue-blood as McCain, though of Irish and Cherokee and English stock on his Mother's side and having Afro-American and Afro-American and even Jewish antecedents in South Carolina, Illinois and Ohio. His father was a Kenyan Government finance ministry senior economist, and Harvard-educated, which is blue-blood enough for my vote in this financial-technocratic age. Sadly, the Cherokees did not factor highly in Obama's campaign, while full-feathered Indians provided the music after McCain's cncession speech rally in Arizona.
What is most intriguing, if one believes that governing elites tend to favour opportunities for their own, is how well-connected by those somewhat un-modern terms, pedigree and breeding, Barack Obama is by virtue of family connections to 8 US Presidents from Madison to Bush jnr and even Hollywood's aristocracy including Katherine Hepburn, Robert Duvall and Brad Pitt. All this was researched in immense detail by the New England Genological History Society goin back to the 17th century. Less impressive, but heart-warming, on the Irish side, one of Barack Obama's great-great-great-grandfathers was a shoemaker from Moneygall in County Offally. Ancestry.com revealed on March 12, 2007, it found records confirming Obama’s Irish roots (actually only 3.5% Irish and 3.5% Scottish while over 30% English). Canon Stephen Neill, a local Anglican rector, said church documents he found - along with census, immigration and other records tracked down by U.S. genealogists - showing that Obama's great-great-great-grandfather, Fulmouth Kearney (d.1878), a shoe-maker, came from Moneygall in Ireland. On March 20, 1850, a 19-year-old farm hand named Fulmouth Kearney landed in New York Harbor from famine-wrecked Ireland. He went to Ohio to live with relatives, married and had eight children. Three of his daughters married brothers in the Dunham family and one of them eventually produced Ann Dunham (Obama’s mother). The picture is of one of Moneygall's pub which was packed out by 100+ or a full third of the village population for a long caley (céilí or céilídh, meaning party, slender, and of the forest) on election night. Ann Dunham married a Kenyan economics student, whose father was a goat-herder, called Barack Obama and they had Barack Obama Jr. Henry Healy, a 22 years old Moneygall resident says his family records indicate he is distantly related to Obama. Like many Moneygall residents, he followed the U.S. presidential race more closely and rooting for his kinsman. "It would be brilliant if he won ... he is related to me, and also it would be good for the village." Julia Hayes, another Moneygall resident, says "I was hoping Hillary would get in, but now this has come up and I'd love to see ... [Obama] win." According to The Scotsman newspaper (6 Nov. page 9) "A small village is getting ready for an official visit from barack Obama. He had already signalled his desire to see his ancestral home in Moneygall, County Offally (population 299), and his US presidential triumph sent jubilant locals into a tailspin." The piece is titled "These Irish eyes are smiling".
This line of electoral logic reasoning, about McCain's poor chances of winning (substantiated by a 14-point lead in the polls that turned into a 5.5% margin win) may be suspected as just another inconsequential ‘urban legend,’ though such legends need not be dismissed so lightly. The most powerful example of such legends, the most chilling, must be Shawnee Chief Tenskwatawa’s "curse" (upon his military foe General, who later became President, Harrison). Tenskwatawa (or his brother Tecumseh) cursed any US Presidents elected in a year ending with the number zero i.e. every 20 years (which has turned up 8 times so far) electing that they will die in office. This “zero-year curse” “came true” for Harrison (elected 1840) and for the next six zero-year presidents - Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, Roosevelt (FDR) and Kennedy. Ronald Reagan (elected 1980), among other accomplishments, “broke the curse” by surviving an assassin’s bullet (by being taken to a private rather than a state hospital), and so too, so far, has George W. Bush (elected 2000). It must nevertheless be a comfort to President Obama (who heard of the chants 'Kill Obama' at a McCain rally and complained about this at the second Presidential debate) that the next zero at the end of the year is 2020 when everything will become much clearer, by virtue of course of 20/20 hindsight, including knowing by then just how bad the curse of our present financial and economic crisis really was!