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Watch our two-part Debate: 'Can Obama live up to the hype?' 

Read our special coverage from Chicago and Phoenix

View our correspondent's campaign chronicle: 'Washington's sole black university dubious about race argument'

The Observers: 'The world holds its breath on election eve'
   
Republican White House hopeful John McCain Tuesday cast his vote in Arizona accompanied by his wife, Cindy, dodging a waiting pack of reporters as Americans voted for their next president.
   
Dressed in a suit and tie, McCain, who was trailing in the polls ahead of Tuesday's election day, ignored a flood of questions including "How did you sleep?" as he left the polling station in Phoenix.
   
Cameras were kept firmly out of the polling station, allowing McCain to cast his ballot away from the media glare.
   
His running mate Sarah Palin meanwhile cast her vote before sun-up in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, and told waiting journalists that she was hoping to wake up Wednesday as vice president-elect.
   
"Tomorrow, I hope, I believe that I will be able to wake up as vice-president elect and be able to get to work, transition mode, with the president elect John McCain," she said, wrapped up against early morning chill outside the polling station.
   
She said she was "so anxious to work for the American people. We have an optimistic and confident view of what is going to happen today.
   
"I recognize that this is an historical event, no matter which ticket prevails. It bodes so well for the progress that our great country is making.
   
"Barriers, of course, being removed. Glass ceilings being shattered, as a representation of both tickets will show."
   
Democratic rival Barack Obama had voted earlier in Chicago, as relaxed and smiling, he was accompanied to the polling booth by his two young daughters Malia and Sasha.
   
In the next booth, his wife Michelle also voted, with Obama at times checking over her shoulder. Obama's running mate Joseph Biden voted in Wilmington, Delaware.