Despite the NC race narrowing, all the polls have shown Clinton getting blocked at 44% support. There’s been more of a shift from Obama to Undecided than from Obama to Clinton, and that makes it harder to assess where the undecideds will go. Though their uncertainty about Obama arose from the Wright stuff, it’s clear they also retain reservations about Clinton.

Bill Clinton’s been working overtime in the rural hamlets and that could get an extra couple of percentage points. But the polling’s been so consistent in the past week that there is no marked trend towards either candidate. So the thing to watch will be the Sunday talkies, where Russert vs. Obama and Stephanopoulus vs. Clinton will play out. In the latter case, the pundit’s ties to Clinton means he’s got to make a show of being just as tough as he was on Obama, but Clinton will be 100% prepared for that. I’d expect she’ll look perfectly adept to some and pre-packaged to others, but either way, expect no gaffes.

Russert will be the defining one, then. Obama needs to do more than come prepared. He needs to demonstrate something more vital than he does when campaigning defensively. Assured but not cocky, if he can convey an ability to poke fun at himself and McCain, he can still pull in the undecideds. Self-effacing humor beats introspective defensiveness. Targeting McCain works better than attacking Clinton.

Based on the polls of the past few days, the safest bet would be a 6.5% win for Obama in North Carolina and a 5% win for Clinton in Indiana. But ‘final-3-day’ voters often look for trends to develop, and earlier trends against Obama tailed off early last week. All there is now are dangling media narratives, not actual perceptible trends. A solid performance by Obama tomorrow could keep that stasis or reverse it. A botched interview would make NC in play, but there’s very long odds against Clinton narrowing that any closer than a 5% loss.

The silliness that erupted yesterday over an old Clinton friend was something I refused to touch with a ten foot pole as it seemed both contrived and irrelevant. Considering how much of the racial bias in this country has been fully exploited in the last few weeks, I don’t even want to touch on race if it favors a candidate I support. The legacy and history of racism in this country is so toxic and it’s dangerous to go there as much as some have.

North Carolina is one of the very few Southern states demonstrating some great progressiveness in the post-Reagan, post-Helms era. On Tuesday, I hope its voters look more inside themselves than they do at campaign messaging and ask themselves if they want to lead the South forward as they’ve done in recent years, or revert to stereotypes better left to those in the deep South that are stuck there still.

After all, this is more than a presidential race. It’s also a test of conscience. The generation divide of the 1960s has played itself out over the past 15 years in the bitterness directed at the Clintons first and the more recent replay of Vietnam mentalities in the war on Iraq. Let’s retire ’stay the course’ permanently, as a deadly example of a policy that really means “we’re fresh out of ideas.” Reverend Wright joins Jesse Helms in retirement. There’s fresh problems for our country that require intelligent thought and actual solutions. Will North Carolina and Indiana rise to face those challenges as a matter of sound economic and ethical principles? Or will they backwards go to past mythical and ignorance display all ugly and smugly maybe?

I’m still betting most North Carolinans will continue moving forward as leaders. I’m not sure where Indiana will go, but am pleasantly surprised already how far it’s advanced past its own history of racism. It and Oregon were among the worst offenders north of the Mason-Dixon line, and both are poised now - along with North Carolina - to be regional standards of the way forward. Not for Black Americans, but simply for Americans, in a world that’s hoping we can reverse the backward trends of our government in the past seven years.