Palin's Makeup Stylist Fetches Highest Salary in 2-Week Period  —  Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain's presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?  —  Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain's chief foreign policy adviser …

Exclusive: Obama Explains Why His Campaign Will Wait for ‘Toot’  —  Obama Tells 'GMA's' Robin Roberts Why He's Halting His Campaign Swing to Visit Grandmother  —  Barack Obama is home today in Hawaii with his ailing grandmother rather than on the campaign trail because he fears she won't make it to Election Day.

Former Mass. Gov. William Weld to endorse Obama  —  SALEM, N.H.—Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican, is endorsing Democrat Barack Obama for president, citing the senator's steady leadership, good judgment and ability to unify Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Final bill on the Barackopolis: $5.3 million  —  Keep this figure in mind when people claim that the $150,000 the RNC spent on Sarah Palin's wardrobe represents some kind of frivolity.  At least she's going to wear the clothes more than once, and it may raise some decent funds for charity at the end of the campaign.

Something About Sarah  —  My husband called it first.  Then, a brilliant 75-year-old scholar and raconteur confessed to me over wine: “I'm sexually attracted to her.  I don't care that she knows nothing.”  —  Finally, writer Robert Draper closed the file on the Sarah Palin mystery …

McCain for President  —  WASHINGTON — Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain.  I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over.  I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left …

Breaking Down the Battleground States  —  McCain Faces an Uphill Battle in Eight Key States Up for Grabs  —  Election Day often comes down to the results of a few crucial battleground states where key electoral votes can hold the key to the White House.  —  In 2000, that battleground was certainly Florida.

A Happiness Gap: Doomacrats And Republigrins  —  Now the good news for Republicans: You are happier than Democrats.  You always have been, and you probably always will be.  —  Never mind that your presidential candidate is sinking in the polls while your president plumbs historic depths …

Regular Needs Children  —  It's nice, I suppose, that Sarah Palin's experience raising a special needs child has awakened her to the importance of generous public support for such children.  And it'd also be nice to think that John McCain's embrace of this issue reflects a genuine Palin-inspired awakening …

11 Days Out, And The Whispering Begins  —  Call it a circular firing squad, or internal dissension, or simply the natural evolution of a campaign that is disappointed with how the endgame is playing out.  —  There's a faction within the McCain campaign has begun to whisper about Gov. Sarah Palin to reporters.

NPR's Final Survey: Obama moves into commanding lead in battleground states and on all key elements of campaign  —  Greenberg Quinlan Rosner National Public Radio  —  US Politics … Executive Summary  —  With just over a week left before the election, Barack Obama's strategy of campaigning …

Palin appointed friends and donors to key posts in Alaska, records show  —  100-plus jobs went to campaign donors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications.  Several donors got state-subsidized loans for business ventures of dubious public value.

Bill Ayers to Release New Edition of Memoir, After Nov. 4th  —  Bill Ayers may have been a radical leftist “domestic terrorist” back in the day, but it doesn't mean he's above making a buck now.  Beacon Press in Boston plans to release a new edition of Ayers's 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days, on November 12.

How's Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion?  —  The Democrat's tax and spending plans deserve closer examination.  —  The most troublesome tax increases in Barack Obama's plan are not those we can already see but those sure to be announced later, after the election is over and budget realities rear their ugly head.

Blame game: GOP forms circular firing squad  —  With despair rising even among many of John McCain's own advisors, influential Republicans inside and outside his campaign are engaged in an intense round of blame-casting and rear-covering—much of it virtually conceding that an Election Day rout is likely.

Group's Tally of New Voters Was Vastly Overstated  —  On Oct. 6, the community organizing group Acorn and an affiliated charity called Project Vote announced with jubilation that they had registered 1.3 million new voters.  But it turns out the claim was a wild exaggeration …

McCain's Private Visit With Chilean Dictator Pinochet Revealed For First Time  —  John McCain, who has harshly criticized the idea of sitting down with dictators without pre-conditions, appears to have done just that.  In 1985, McCain traveled to Chile for a friendly meeting with Chile's military ruler …

Barack Obama for President  —  Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation's future truly hangs in the balance.  —  The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush's failed leadership.  He is saddling his successor with two wars …

New InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position poll: Georgia a tossup  —  10/24/08) A new InsiderAdvantage / Poll Position survey shows Georgia is a toss-up state in both the U.S. Senate and presidential campaigns.  —  In the presidential race, Barack Obama has a slight edge over John McCain, although it is within the margin of error.

Everybody's Voting for the Weekend  —  BY Nov. 4, more than $5 billion will have been spent trying to persuade voters to cast their presidential and congressional ballots one way or another.  Despite all the money and the news media hysteria, and even with record numbers of Americans heading to the polls …

1&1 Internet Has Allowed My Domain to Be Hijacked  —  The company “1&1″ has allowed my domain, patterico.com, to be hijacked.  —  Look up at the address bar.  This is still the Patterico site — but I no longer have the patterico.com domain — even though I renewed it before the expiration date.

Runnin' with the Devil  —  In the first segment of the Great One's program last night, Mark highlighted this article by Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker, describing a clip, recently dug up by the Confederate Yankee site (the clip was also played by Mark), in which the FBI informant …