Four years ago, Bruce Springsteen traveled to Ohio to play an acoustic set for another Democratic nominee. His gig, at Ohio State University in Columbus, wasn’t without trouble. The power failed and the set was delayed for an hour. The crowd was a respectable, but not overwhelming, 25,000.

This time around, Springsteen has been playing free gigs without the candidate—until he returned to Ohio on Sunday night to appear onstage with Barack Obama. The crowd size: a much more impressive 80,000. His final song before bringing the Obama family on stage: "The Rising," which has become part of the soundtrack at each campaign rally.

The night wasn’t without problems. It started raining a few minutes into Obama’s speech, soon after he started poking fun at Dick Cheney’s endorsement of John McCain. “Sunshine is on the way,” he promised metaphorically. “We’ve got just two more days of these clouds.”

Still, Obama seemed not to care much about the weather when it came to his mood. After traveling with his family for the last 24 hours, the candidate seemed more upbeat than he has at most other events, where he normally warns his supporters against complacency.

“The last couple of days, I’ve been just feeling good,” he said. “And part of the reason that I’m feeling good is that because sometimes it’s lonely on the road. But when you’ve got a wife like Michelle Obama, when you’ve got daughters like Malia and Sasha Obama, and when they’re with you on the road, boy, everything looks a little better.

“The crowds seem to grow and everybody’s got a smile on their face. You start thinking that maybe we might be able to win an election on November 4th.”

Some final clues about what the Obama campaign will be watching for, and worrying about, on election night. The Democratic candidate is spending most of the penultimate day of the election in Ohio: first with 60,000 Buckeyes in Columbus, then with Bruce Springsteen in Cleveland, and finally in Cincinnati.

Columbus and Cleveland are Democratic strongholds in the state. Kerry won Franklin County around Columbus by 9 points in 2004; and he won Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County by 34 points.

But Cincinnati was Bush Country in 2004, where Kerry lost by 5 points in Hamilton County. To end the day in the corner of Ohio where Republicans need to rack up votes is a clear challenge to McCain’s base in the state.

After a late-night flight south, Obama wakes up on the final full day of campaigning in Jacksonville, Florida. That lies in Duval County,which Bush won by 16 points four years ago. From there he makes a big play for the South – Charlotte, North Carolina, and finally Manassas, Virginia.

The symbolism of ending election eve in Northern Virginia is irresistible to the Obama campaign.

At the start of this final week, Obama visited Harrisonburg, at the western side of the state, where he noted that the last Democratic presidential candidate to visit the town was Stephen Douglas in 1860. At the next event, in Norfolk, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said he believed a Democratic candidate could win Virginia for the first time in 44 years, since LBJ. Either Obama hopes to take Virginia out of the confederacy or he hopes to turn back the clock to a time before Nixon and Reagan.

The latest NBC/Mason-Dixon polls split all four states, with the numbers well within the margin of error. In Ohio, McCain is up by 2 points;in Florida, Obama is up by 2. In North Carolina McCain is up by 3 points; in Virginia, Obama is up by 3.

That means Obama could easily lose them all, although his senior aides say that Florida is the big prize that concerns them most. On the other hand, an early win in Virginia could spell a sweeping victory for Obama on Tuesday.

You’ve probably heard by now that Sarah Palin this week was unwittingly duped into taking a phone call from a guy claiming to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy when in fact it was really a Canadian comedian well known for pulling pranks on celebrities and other well-known politicos.

So how exactly did that happen? According to a senior McCain aide, the caller made initial contact with Palin’s advisers by first calling the governor’s office in Alaska. The call had been routed through France, and the comedian used the name of one of Sarkozy’s top aides, which suggested the phone call was legitimate. “He did all the right things,” this aide insists. The message was passed on by Palin’s aides back in Alaska to the McCain campaign and was ultimately routed up the food chain, ending up in the hands of Steve Biegun, a former National Security adviser to President Bush, who is now one of Palin’s top aides. Seeing no warning signs, Biegun and other top McCain aides signed-off on the call, and the rest is history.

Privately, McCain aides see the phone call as more of an embarrassment for the staff than for Palin—after all, it’s up to the staff who gets to talk to the candidates and who doesn’t. But that may be lost on voters who already have doubts about Palin’s experience and readiness for the office.

UPDATE, 4 PM EST:

A second senior McCain aide clarifies what exactly the campaign knew about the call. According to this aide, none of McCain’s top staffers were aware of the call between Palin and the fake Sarkozy until after the fact. The call was routed from Palin’s Alaska office directly to the advisers working directly with the GOP VP hopeful, and they made the decision to initiate contact without notifying other members of McCain’s senior staff. Upon word of the fake-out, the campaign’s upper echelon organized a conference call yesterday afternoon with both McCain and Palin senior aides to discuss how to handle. According to one participant, who declined to be named, aides went back and forth venting their frustration. “Does anyone not think it’s strange that the French president would want to talk to a candidate in the final 72 hours of the campaign,” one senior McCain aide demanded, noting that the White House and the National Security Council would likely be involved in any such phone calls. “It’s appalling.” Bigger picture, the episode provides a glimpse at what have been increased tensions between the McCain plane and the Palin plane in the final weeks of the campaign. Aides have pushed back in recent days against stories that all is not well between the two camps, but it appears that may not be exactly true.