McCain About To Do A Gore In Home State

POLL ILLUSTRATES HOW GOP IS LOSING THE BATTLE FOR LATINOS

election'08: the race to clean the place
6 days to go

On the face of it, the likelihood Sen John McCain lets his home state of Arizona go the way of Tennessee in 2000 is still remote, but the Arizona Republic's poll showing their boy with a two point lead over Sen. Barack Obama is ominous.

It's not so much for the embarrassment of losing your own constituency, but what the tightening of the race may say about the burgeoning Latino vote in the West.

McCain may be one of the few conservatives amendable to immigration, but his party is vehemently against it and voters of Mexican and Central American ancestry are nonetheless wary.

One of the long-reaching stories of this election may be the first direct evidence that Democrats are winning the hearts of Latino voters in not only Arizona, but Nevada, New Mexico and more conclusively in Colorado where Obama is likely to win.

After two successive elections where the electoral map was consistently static, the Obama campaign may have jumbled the political landscape of the West for the benefit of a generation of Democrats years to come.