Can Obama really pull it off?

Can Barack Obama actually blow this thing? Can he actually lose in November?

We have a deeply troubled economy, an unpopular war, a very unpopular president and a historic reluctance on the part of the American people to elect the same party to the White House three terms in a row.
You look at all that, and you figure Obama would be leading by double digits. But he isn’t. The race is essentially tied, and not just in the national polls, which really don’t count for much, but in the Electoral College projections, which do. On Monday, MSNBC put its electoral count at 233 for Obama and 227 for McCain, with 270 needed for victory. That’s really close.
Some Democrats are getting very concerned, and they have been making their concerns known to the Obama campaign. “We’re familiar with this,” Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, told The New York Times a few days ago. “And I’m sure between now and Nov. 4 there will be another period of hand-wringing and bed-wetting. It comes with the territory.”
On Tuesday, I spoke to four prominent Democratic strategists, all of whom have had major roles in past presidential campaigns. I didn’t find any wet beds or wrung hands, but there was a white knuckle or two.
“I think this will be a close election, and all Democrats should approach it as if we could lose,” said Steve Elmendorf, who worked on Dick Gephardt’s and John Kerry’s presidential campaigns. Elmendorf said he is “not contemplating an Obama loss,” but “this is a closely divided country.”
He also said that the Obama campaign may have lost a little of its edge after winning a hard-fought primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and growing a little overconfident.
“I think for a time in August people were getting complacent,” Elmendorf said. “People were worried about the transition and not the election. But as this has gotten closer, it has increased interest and enthusiasm to make sure we win.”

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080917/pl_politico/13524;_ylt=AlLBLhAh78MTgTQKRMZlwcdsnwcF