Somewhere, Andy Dufresne Smiles

Andy Dufresne, of course, was the protagonist in "Shawshank Redemption." You know the line about hope and being a good thing. And no good thing ever dies.

Barack Obama had a chance to knock the hope out of John McCain, and didn't do it. There's be just enough twitches of life in recent national and state polls to keep the door open for McCain. Considered an excellent closer, McCain has to knock the door down, but at least it's not padlocked shut.

The problem for McCain is there are so many "he's gottas." He's gotta protect a slim lead in Florida, and he's gotta steal Penn. or Ohio. He's gotta come back in traditionally GOP states like Virginia or Colorado. Out of six to eight states, he's probably gotta find his redemption in probably three-quarters of them.

Can he do it? Absolutely. In most of those states the polling numbers are close enough that their not lead-pipe cinches for Obama. I'd also assume there's some soft support for Obama out there that might chicken out at the last minute. We're 10 days away from electing the first black president in this country. That is a monumental sentence. Will some folks stumble on that? It's certainly possible.

You can go to good websites like Real Clear Politics and fivethirtyeight.com and get details on polls and projections (538 is especially good. It's done by a statistician and is excellent) and see the crystal-ball reading of Obama winning 340 to 350 Electoral College delegates -- or more. But I don't think so. I think it tightens up between now and Nov. 4, and it's a Late Night for Natalie come Election Night. Obama certainly has the easier road, but McCain has hope. And that's the best of things.