So the moment has come, and Barack Obama has voted in his home state of Illinois (no, not that other moment for which so many seem to have been waiting, confirmation that he will be the next president of the United States. If that moment comes.) Will anyone draw a comparison to it being an iconic image, on a par with the glorious day in 1994 that Nelson Mandela voted for the first time?

It is not quite comparable, for a host of reasons not least that the election in which Mandela was voting was a foregone conclusion, without the complicated vocabulary and mathematics of states swing and bellwether, of electoral colleges (although technically it is a joint sitting of South Africa's two houses of parliament that elects the country's president, not by direct vote). If elected president, Obama will have it in common with Mandela that he must spearhead a massive task of reconstruction (no, not redistribution, Ms Palin) and could change the image of his country in the eyes of the world. And yes, they have it in common that both are shrewder and tougher politicians than their feelgood images may otherwise suggest. But this is far as the comparison may be stretched, and no further. If there is an iconic image ahead, it will be the moment that a president Obama takes the oath of office; only then, if then; not otherwise.

Right-wing bloggers, who have gone into fury mode as polls in the US are underway, continue to suggest that the notion that Obama's lead in opinion surveys will translate into a victory is a fiction perpetuated by the mainstream media (MSM, in the parlance of such folk) in co-operation with the Obama machine. No doubt the fact that Obama's appearance at the voting station followed not that long after one William Ayers went to vote there could give the chance for one last, or one of the last, flings of mud.

On the other side, media report almost palpable nervousness on the part of Democrats and converts to the Obama cause that the election will be snatched from them by just the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) combination of states that stay red, or by disputes, challenges, chads or whatever other means that will again return a Republican to the White House. John McCain has insisted at his closing rallies that he cannot be written off; given that opinion polls cannot be an exact science, especially on rather a few parts of the map, he is technically correct. But then, nor could "the Mac" as he has returned to styling himself, be expected to make a concession speech before polling day has formally started, and he himself has been acid on the subject of Obama's presumption in making a premature "victory lap".

As the night wears on, and fingers that may add up to hundreds of thousands flick remote controls and interactive electoral maps, there may be talk of landslides. Strangely, that term is a loosely-used one, without an agreed mathematical definition. For working purposes, we could perhaps agree that an Obama landslide would be one that came close to Reagan's victory over Carter in 1980, 489 electoral votes to the Democrat's 49. But otherwise, a landslide in politics seems rather like the real-life geological phenomenon; you feel it to be one.