WASHINGTON - Election Day is finally here, the final opinion polls are in and now it’s time for Americans to make their way to the voting booth — but will weather be a factor?

According to the latest forecast maps, most of the country will not have adverse weather conditions, but there could be rain showers in two battleground states.

Good weather historically has helped Democrats.

Virginia, which has voted Republican since 1964, is now a toss-up state between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama and will likely see showers most of the day stretching from Newport News north to the suburbs outside Washington, D.C., and west toward Roanoke.

Parts of North Carolina, a state that has been leaning slightly toward McCain, will experience showers during the morning.

Meanwhile Florida, Ohio, Missouri and Pennsylvania, all battleground states critical to a McCain victory, should be clear. Other key states like Colorado and New Mexico, where Obama hopes to help his cause, are not expected to have bad weather.

Out West, Weather.com reported that showers are expected in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Joe Skipper (Voters in Boca Raton, Fla. line up to vote on Tuesday)

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - There was a sharp exchange among patrons during Barack Obama’s visit to a barbecue restaurant on Sunday, highlighting the strong emotions the U.S. presidential race is stirring in the final weeks of the campaign.

Obama stopped by Cape Fear BBQ in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to pick up some chicken, collards and baked beans and court voters in this traditionally Republican state.

Some patrons cheered his arrival while others looked on with curiosity and surprise. One woman yelled, “Socialist, Socialist, Socialist — get out of here.” Obama was across the room at the time and did not appear to hear Diane Fanning, 54, who was among several patrons who had just come by after services at the local Presbyterian church. She said she was annoyed that the Illinois senator had stopped in at the restaurant that she regularly visits.

Obama supporter Cecelia Hayslip, 61, responded to Fanning’s comments by saying, “At least he’s not a warmonger.”

Lenox Bramble, 76, isn’t an Obama supporter but he also was bothered by Fanning’s comment. “Be civil, be courteous,” he said.

Later, Bramble and his wife, Kit, seemed to find some common ground with Obama when he said he shared their concerns about the loss of textile jobs to other countries and underscored his pledge to try to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Act.

They later said that while they found Obama likeable, they were not going to vote for him. Lenox finds Obama too inexperienced while Kit said she had been a conservative Republican since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 candidacy and wasn’t about to change.

Obama had more success with first-time voter Mike Long, 33, who talked to the candidate about health care. Long said he had gone from being less than 50 percent likely to vote for Obama to being 98 percent certain he would back the Democrat.

Obama later walked over to Fanning’s table and extended his hand to her but she did not shake it. 

North Carolina is among some traditional Republican states that have turned competitive in recent weeks. George W. Bush won the state handily in both 2000 and 2004, racking up more than 12-point wins each time. But an average of recent polls on the Web site RealClearPoltics showed Obama with slight 1.3 percent lead in the state.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young - U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama makes a campaign stop at a restaurant in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Oct. 19, 2008.

With polls showing that Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has a shot at winning North Carolina, Republican rival John McCain is sending his wife Cindy to the state on Saturday to shore up what has traditionally been a stronghold for conservatives.

Obama has made inroads in North Carolina and made the city of Asheville his spot for preparing for the debate held this week. Plus, two out of three polls released this week have shown the Democrat ahead by as many as five points while the third poll showed McCain ahead by 3 points.

Cindy McCain, who has been taking a more prominent role in the campaign in recent days, will serve as the Grand Marshal at the NASCAR Bank of America 500 race on Saturday in Concord, North Carolina, the Republican’s campaign said. 

In addition to seeking those NASCAR voters, McCain’s vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, will be wooing the hockey contingent when she drops the ceremonial first puck in another battleground state, Pennsylvania, as the Philadelphia Flyers face off against the New York Rangers on Saturday.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Robert LeSieur (NASCAR Sprint Cup last month in Delaware.)

MONTREAT, N.C. - Billy Graham is as close to a religious icon in American politics as anyone, so it’s no surprise that a U.S. presidential candidate would seek his blessing.

On Sunday Republican John McCain did just that, essentially, traveling to the ailing evangelist’s mountaintop home to meet and pray with him and son Franklin, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

“They’re great leaders in this nation and I appreciate the opportunity to visit with them and I am very grateful for the time they spent with me,” McCain said after their meeting.

The Arizona senator had requested the appointment.

“They’ve known my family, they’ve known of me for many years,” he said, adding the elder Graham recalled meeting and praying with McCain’s parents while their son was held captive in Vietnam.

Franklin Graham issued a statement that highlighted what he had in common with McCain: sons serving in the military and a shared interest in aviation.

But he did not offer an endorsement.

“I was impressed by his personal faith and his moral clarity on important social issues facing America today,” Graham said of McCain.

“I encourage people to vote for the candidate at every level who best represents their values and convictions, and then to pray for those in authority over us as required in Scripture.”

McCain, who attends a Baptist church in Phoenix but is often circumspect about his faith when asked about it on the campaign trail, said he had not sought the pair’s political backing.

“Oh, I didn’t ask for their vote,” he said.  

Photo: Reuters/Chris Keane -   Evangelist Billy Graham (L) walks with his son Franklin Graham before the Billy Graham Library Dedication in Charlotte, North Carolina, May 31, 2007.

CHICAGO - As Barack Obama celebrated his compelling win in North Carolina and the unexpected closeness of the Indiana race on Tuesday night, his senior strategist said one of the campaign’s top tasks now is to court influential Democratic Party figures.
 
The Democratic senator from Illinois was seen as showing resilience after a bumpy ride in which he has struggled with questions about his former pastor’s fiery sermons and efforts by Clinton to paint him as an “out of touch” elitist.
 
Analysts said his rival Hillary Clinton, who won only narrowly in Indiana where she had been favored to do well, was likely to face increased pressure to exit the race because her showing did little to advance her argument that she would be more electable than Obama in a matchup against Republican Sen. John McCain.
 
Asked by reporters whether there would be a slew of new endorsements from the party stalwarts and officials known as the “superdelegates,” Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, was careful not to reveal too much.
 
“We’re going to be reaching out to them,” Axelrod told reporters as Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, flew back home to Chicago from his evening rally in North Carolina.
 
The Obama strategist said the message in these conversations would be a simple one: “Read the newspapers.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Keane (Obama waves to supporters at his North Carolina and Indiana primary election night rally in Raleigh.)

WASHINGTON - Remember John Edwards? 
    He ran a spirited campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, never caught much fire and dropped out of the race about, oh, it feels like 10 years ago (actually it was January).
    The former North Carolina senator has kept a low profile ever since and has resisted entreaties from the remaining Democrats, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, for his endorsement.
    And he is still resisting, as voters cast ballots on Tuesday in his home state’s Democratic primary election, according to People Magazine, which tracked down Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth.
    Edwards, who was John Kerry’s vice presidential running mate in 2004, told People he likes Clinton’s “tenacity” but sees “a lot of the old politics” in her.
    He likes Obama, too, but “sometimes I want to see more substance under the rhetoric.”
    Bottom line, according to People, rather than endorse one or the other, Edwards and his wife will save their political capital for causes such as fighting poverty and improving U.S. health care.

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Photo credit:  Reuters/Lee Celano (Edwards, with wife Elizabeth on the right, announces his withdrawal from the Democratic presidential race in January.)

INDIANAPOLIS - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, seeking to erode rival Hillary Clinton’s edge with blue-collar workers, made a personal pitch for their support on the eve of Tuesday’s Indiana and North Carolina primaries.

“How is everybody?” Obama asked a group of workers in hard hats at a construction site on Monday morning in Evansville, Indiana, where he chatted with them about health care and gasoline costs.

After a town hall session in North Carolina and a big evening rally in Indiana, Obama  stopped by a car parts plant in Indianapolis at midnight to greet workers coming off the night shift. He told them he faced a close race with Clinton and asked for their votes. But Frank Spiceland, 29, a machinist at the plant, which employs 600 Ford Motor Company employees and 600 from Automotive Components Holdings, asked Obama to help save his job.

The factory is scheduled to close in 2010. Many of the Ford employees, such as Spiceland, may be able to transfer to another plant if they want to. Others will be laid off.

“I asked him if he could help keep the plant open as long as possible,” said Spiceland, who added the chance to meet the Illinois senator one-on-one had persuaded him to vote for Obama, even though he was previously undecided.

Clinton’s strong base of support with union workers and other working-class voters helped deliver solid victories to her in the two big industrial states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. She is hoping her strength with that demographic group will boost her chances in Indiana.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama greets shift workers at Indianapolis plant)

CARY, N.C. - A double standard that treats men and women differently still exists in the race for the White House, Hillary Clinton told an audience on Saturday.

The former first lady recalled Hollywood dancing stars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the famous saying that Rogers did everything Astaire did but “backwards and in high heels.”

“I do think that there is still something of a double standard,” she said in North Carolina. “I think there is a certain element of that.”

“I’m not running for president because I’m a woman,” she added, “but I’m very conscious of the fact that my being a woman sends an incredible message of possibility, not only to our daughters but also to our sons. It says in our country, we have consistently expanded the circle of opportunity. We have broken through so many glass ceilings.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Keane

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Barack Obama sought to distance himself further Friday from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, telling a North Carolina rally that comments by his former pastor that have been  described as ”crazy” should not be used to judge his candidacy.

Obama has said his presidential bid was damaged by a recent series of public appearances by Wright, in which the pastor repeated earlier charges the Sept. 11 attacks were retribution for U.S. foreign policy and that the U.S. government had a hand in spreading AIDS to blacks.

But the Illinois senator, locked in a battle for the Democratic nomination with Sen. Hillary Clinton, said earlier on Friday in Indianapolis he would leave it to the pollsters to analyze the extent of the impact from the Wright flap on his campaign.
Obama broke publicly with his longtime pastor earlier this week when he called a news conference to criticize Wright’s remarks as “outrageous” and “appalling.”

“As we’ve done well in this election, as we’ve been successful, increasingly my opponents have spent their time talking, not about the issues, but about me,” Obama told a rally of about 9,000 people at Charlotte’s Cricket Arena.

“They’ve been saying, ‘Well, look at those crazy things his former pastor said or he’s not wearing a flag pin or he’s got a funny name, sounds like he’s Muslim,’” he said. “Those are strategies to divide us. We’ve seen those strategies before.”

Obama said his critics were out of line in questioning his patriotism.

“You want to understand my patriotism? I owe everything to this country,” he said. 

Photo Credit: Reuters/Chris Keane (Obama speaks in Charlotte, N.C.)

While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton criss-cross North Carolina hunting for votes ahead of the May 6 Democratic primary election, one prominent resident of the state is missing: John Edwards.

He’s gone to Disneyworld, for a long-planned vacation with his family.

Edwards, who withdrew from his second presidential race in January, has not yet endorsed a candidate, though both Clinton and Obama have wooed him.

Though they’re supposedly away from the political infighting while at Disneyworld, Edwards’ wife Elizabeth is keeping her feet wet.

Elizabeth, who has had a recurrence of breast cancer, is now a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, specializing in health care. While at Cinderella’s Castle she took a  break for a phone call to talk with colleagues about Republican John McCain’s health care plan.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Lee Celano (Edwards waves as he walks with his family before announcing he would withdraw from U.S. presidential race)