By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

The election is almost over: Barack Obama kept his huge lead among likely voters in Sunday's Gallup Poll, with a 51-43 percent margin over John McCain.

More bad news for McCain:

Obama is far ahead, at 52-41 percent, with all voters.

And still more:

Gallup shows that Obama continues to be above the winning 50 percent mark with likely voters, which he's done for all but two of the last 16 days.

And the final bad news:

Nothing that McCain has done anytime in the last few weeks has made a significant and lasting dent in Obama's margin.

Time is running out on McCain.