Obama is contrasting his American Jobs Act, which includes giving tax credits to employers who hire veterans, against a “do-nothing Congress.”

Photo: Associated Press/Charles Dharapak

It’s midnight, November 6, 2012. You and 100,000 other Chicagoans are in Grant Park, waiting, praying, for the President of the United States to step out onto the stage and once again shout, “Hello, Chicago!” The crowd is tensely silent, like a courtroom in the seconds before the verdict is read. On the Diamond Vision screen, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer points at a map where Ohio, Florida and Virginia are colored gray: still too close to call. If Obama wins any one of those states, he will be President for another four years. If he loses them all, the man who was once the nation’s greatest hope for change will be a one-term failure, rejected by the American people. At a quarter past the hour, Blitzer makes an announcement: “We have a major call…”

You can exhale. While Grant Park will never experience another election night as thrilling as 2008, you won’t ride home on the quietest El train of your life, either. Despite the assertion of many election prognosticators that the POTUS is likely heading toward a one-term presidency, Time Out Chicago is here to calm your nerves. Obama will win. Here’s why.