Obama's Grandmother Dies  —  CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A tragic turn of events for Sen. Barack Obama: his ailing grandmother died today.  —  Here's a statement from Obama and his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng:  —  “It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer.

Tampa McCain rally: Where is everybody?  —  About 30 minutes before John McCain is scheduled to lead a rally outside Raymond James Stadium, looks like there's maybe 1,000 people here.  What's up with that?  On the day before the election?  Bush drew at least 15,000 people to a rally …

FOX News Poll: Obama Leads Going Into Election Day  —  Barack Obama holds a solid lead over John McCain going into Election Day — 50 percent to 43 percent — according to the final FOX News pre-election poll of likely voters.  —  FOXNews.com  —  Monday, 2008-03-308

Palin campaign stonewalls on medical records  —  LAKEWOOD, Ohio (CNN) - With less than 24 hours to go before the presidential election, Sarah Palin still has not released her medical records and there is no indication the campaign is planning to do so.  —  Two weeks ago, Palin's campaign …

Romney Can't Bring Himself To Say That McCain Has Conducted A ‘Dignified And Honest’ Campaign  —  This morning on NBC's Today Show, host Meredith Vieira asked McCain campaign surrogate Mitt Romney about a new University of Wisconsin analysis, which found that more of McCain's ads have been negative than Obama's in the past week.

Hyperactive Fact-Checkers  —  I think it's probably a good thing that so many media organizations now run these “fact-check” items about political ads and rhetoric (except that it's going to confuse the next generation of magazine interns about what fact-checking is about) but one thing I've noticed is a tendency to get overly vigilant.

Keith Olbermann on McCain Campaign Giddiness: They Have “Even Less of a Clue Than I Thought.”  —  I reached Olbermann by email this morning to ask him about how it felt to be the McCain campaign's ray of sunshine.  He responded: … The McCain campaign denies Palin called an audible on complimenting Tina.

Penn: Democrats Must Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory  —  One happy result of the way the primaries came out is that Mark Penn is writing op-eds in The Financial Times rather than advising the next President of the United States: … To just repeat what I said in response …

Ohio Coal Association Says Obama Remarks Make It Clear: Obama Ticket Not Supportive of Coal  —  Mike Carey, president of the Ohio Coal Association (OCA), today issued the following statement in response to just-released remarks from Senator Barack Obama about the nation's coal industry.

Last of the Culture Warriors  —  Why has America turned on Sarah Palin?  Obviously, her wobbly television interviews haven't helped.  Nor have the drip, drip of scandals from Alaska, which have tarnished her reformist image.  But Palin's problems run deeper, and they say something fundamental about the political age being born.

Fox News' Major Garrett Defends Obama Against “Fox & Friends” In Leaked E-Mail  —  Fox News correspondent Major Garrett shot back in defense of Barack Obama against the network's morning show's effort to suggest that he has ignored Fox News throughout the campaign.

Barack Obama Answers Your Questions — Check Out The Full Interview Here!  —  For your responses, watch ‘Ask Obama’ on Monday at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. ET on MTV.  —  MTV News sat down with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Saturday in Nevada, but we weren't alone.

CNN Wants Its Viewers to Be Misinformed  —  Steve Hayes is not what you would call a reliable source of information.  His first book, The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America was a deliberate attempt to mislead the public about the subject at hand.

Obama's Attack Ad On Himself  —  I should have gotten this out earlier, but just didn't get all the video clips together quick enough.  In putting this together, it's been surprising, even to someone who's followed the entire presidential race in great detail, the extent to which Obama has gotten away …

Palin On Democrats: “Do They Think The Terrorists ... Are The Good Guys?”  —  In a speech just now in Missouri, Sarah Palin unleashed some of the most ostentatious POW-POW-POWing of the campaign, and strongly implied that Dems think the “terrorists” are the “good guys.”

THE NEW POLL TAX.  —  This is why Rachel Maddow matters:  —  The poll tax was a sly system of disenfranchisement used in the Jim Crow era to disenfranchise Southern blacks.  Aware that the Constitution now assured everyone the “right” to vote, Southern states imposed a voting fee heavy enough …

The Republicans' appalling attack on Rashid Khalidi.  —  On the clouded synapses of Sen. John McCain, it became clear as his campaign limped and lurched to its close, the termites had been dining long and dining well.  However much one might have admired the low comedy of his closing routine …

Obama's Nevada State Director Dies  —  Terence Tolbert, Barack Obama's Nevada state director, died suddenly of a heart attack yesterday.  He was 44, and a former senior aide to New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein and mayor Michael Bloomberg.  —  For this reason, the mood …

PALIN'S RISING STAR?  —  I know there's a lot of talk in Republican circles that Sarah Palin is going to be the star, the new face of the GOP in the post-Bush, post-McCain era.  And this speculation has been goosed by Palin's own hints that it's full speed ahead with Palinism on the national stage …

The Cell-Phone-Only Difference: A Final Look  —  A little over a week ago, I posted two different national trend estimates: one for pollsters who were reaching cell-phone-only (CPO) respondents by calling cell phones in addition to landlines and one for those who were only calling landlines.