This Election Isn't Change, It's More of the Same: Didion

Palin suggests Dem's '08 adviser lifted Alaska strategy

(NEWSER) - Sarah Palin believes she might deserve some of the credit for President Obama's victory but not in the way some people in the McCain camp would have it. In Going Rogue, Palin points to her campaign for Alaska governor as having used the "Change" theme and suggests she may have inspired the Obama campaign, the Telegraph reports. More»

(NEWSER) - Not all the polls are going in Barack Obama's favor. An AP-GfK survey says John McCain has closed the gap with Obama after the last debate by gaining voters among whites and those earning less than $50,000. The poll has the race at 44%-43% in favor of Obama, a statistical tie indicating that the "Joe the plumber" analogy resonated. The same poll placed Obama 7 points ahead of McCain three weeks ago, the AP reports. More»

Billboard in online racing game marks another first for Dem's campaign

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama’s campaign has been lauded for its online efforts, but in the race to make high-speed connections with voters, the Democrat has taken another “new media” leap, placing a campaign billboard inside an Xbox 360 online racing game. While politicians have promoted themselves online before, this is hands-down the most prominent use of the medium, Wagner James Au writes on GigaOM. More»

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama may be pulling slowly away from John McCain, but he's the overwhelming choice among the pre-K through 12th grade set. In a Scholastic poll, 57% of 250,000 students picked the Dem, USA Today reports. And don’t write it off as youthful inexperience —the poll has an 88% accuracy rate, only twice failing to predict the real winner since 1940. Write-ins this year included Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul, “My Dad,” and Stephen Colbert. More»

History shows that McCain can surge

(NEWSER) - With Obama pulling well ahead of the Straight Talk Express, "the 2008 campaign seems poised to enter its Harry Truman phase," writes Walter Shapiro in Salon. But a November comeback isn’t out of the question. Shapiro runs down four factors that could push McCain into the White House:

1. The elastic electorate: There are likely more “undecideds” out there than polls show. Plus, "it is ludicrous to believe that public opinion will be frozen in amber" for the next 3 weeks.