KERRY: "You have a choice, all Americans have this choice today," Senator John Kerry declared before heading home to Boston to vote and have a traditional Election Day lunch at the Union Oyster House. "George Bush made his choices."
The Massachusetts senator charged that the Republican incumbent was responsible for job losses, an out-of-control deficit, burgeoning health care costs and a failed policy in Iraq.
"The president made a choice. He made a choice without a plan to win the peace," he told supporters at a canvassing headquarters in La Crosse, Wisconsin. "We need a commander in chief who knows how to bring other countries to the table." But Mr Kerry acknowledged that if he won the White House, his job would not be easy. "I'm not pretending to anybody that it's a bed of roses. We've got some tough choices."
The Democrat took no chances, hunting for every last vote by helping to add new names to the rolls in the vital battleground state of Wisconsin and urging voters to go out and cast their ballots for "a new beginning . . . a change of direction."
"We're going to put common-sense and truth back into the decisions of this country," he declared. Both parties worked overtime to get their supporters to the polls. Mr Kerry's vice presidential running mate Mr John Edwards predicted as many as 115 million Americans would vote. All eyes were on a handful of critical states including Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Political analysts say the candidate that takes two of those will win the White House.
As the extraordinarily tight presidential race came down to the wire, the final Reuters/Zogby polls before yesterday's voting showed Mr Bush leading Mr Kerry 48-47 per cent in the three-day national tracking poll - well within the margin of error. "In all honesty I don't think it is possible to predict what is going to happen," Mr Edwards said on NBC's Today show."I think we will see unprecedented turnout. I think, we will see huge voter participation and when that happens democracy works, so we feel very confident, very optimistic." Kerry wound up his two-year quest for the presidency with an 18-hour marathon that took him from Florida in the south to Wisconsin in the upper midwest. "This is your chance to hold George Bush accountable," he told supporters.