The New Yorker is reporting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin began actively campaigning for the vice-presidential gig almost immediately after she took the governor's office in early 2007. A key component to her vice-presidential strategy was to schmooze high-falutin' conservatives who were passengers on two Seattle-based Holland America cruise ships in the summer and fall of that year. more ›

While the country was busy blindly voting for whoever they fancied, Seattle Weekly writer Don Ward was hard at work being a true patriot and writing an important blog post for the Weekly. We only wish he'd opened our eyes sooner before we so ignorantly cast our ballot. more ›

•The polls close at 8 p.m., and absentee ballots must be postmarked by today. You can find where you are registered here; you can find a place to watch the results in public here. more ›

What a long, strange trip it's been. Look back on this Presidential campaign season via the video above, or go all the way back to the halcyon days of the primaries at this simple, foul-mouthed website. more ›

Throughout the campaign we have been gathering the top political writers in the country, and asking them to discuss the presidential race. Today they reflect on the campaign and what they expect on Election Day. more ›

Everybody's favorite dry-witted financial mag waited until the week before the election, but The Economist's Presidential endorsement is online today, and it's an unequivocal backing of Barack Obama: more ›

Seattlest has to hand it to the Obama campaign for the way they've been spending their enormous amount of campaign cash. Yesterday, it was well-circulated that they're advertising in X-Box video games (the first candidate to ever do such a thing) to reach the kind of people who play NASCAR, hockey, and baseball games. Smart! Then, this morning, we headed over to their new taxcut calculator to tinker around with it. more ›

As the Slog pointed out yesterday, giant baseball nerd (God bless those of us that are left) Nate Silver uses some sort of math (snore) to project what he claims is non-biased polling data. more ›

Washington State voters have been polled up the wazoo by SurveyUSA after each debate this campaign season. And while they turned in a win (within the margin of error) for McCain in the first Presidential debate, and a split decision (later amended to a slight win for Biden) in the Vice Presidential debate, this time around, the Washington State sample polled clearly thought that Obama won the second presidential debate. more ›

DRINKING GAMES: It's too predictable at this point to use the word "maverick" for your drinking game. Considering McCain's newly announced strategy of character smears and trying to make the country hate their savior, we would suggest going into tonight's debate with a list of drinking game terms that includes "Ayers," "palling around," "that's not true, John." Just a thought. Oh, did we bury the lead? The second presidential debate is happening tonight at Washington University in Missouri. Tune in to any channel. They'll all be showing it. more ›

Since no one reads the Weekly's blogs, we figured the post where Chris Kornelis pulls for Sarah Palin in tonight's debate might have passed under the radar. more ›

Throughout the campaign we have been gathering the top political writers in the country, and asking them to discuss the presidential race. Today they discuss the Republican ticket and look at tonight's vice-presidential debate. more ›

According to SurveyUSA (actually one of the best pollsters in the business), Washington voters thought John McCain performed better in last night's first Presidential debate. more ›

Kim is relieved the debate is actually going to happen. She'll be watching with friends tonight before working all weekend. Saturday, she'll take a break for a quiet night out, and then she'll close the weekend off getting funky in the balcony of Jazz Alley with Maceo.
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POLITICS JUNKIE: The jury's still out on whether or not McCain is going to display how capable he is of handling politics and governing at the same time (i.e. the job of the president) by showing up for tonight's debate in Mississippi. But, the Presidential Debate Commission will be there, a giant pool of reporters will be there, and his opponent Barack Obama will be there ready and willing to turn the whole thing into a town hall meeting if that's what has to happen. Oh, the drama of the whole thing! Tune in at your own home, at your friends' houses, or at a number of locations around town that will be holding watch parties. (UPDATE: McCain has decided to show up, after all. We'll refrain from commenting and leave that all up to you.) more ›

• West Seattle Blog has the update on Nickelsville and the encampment's scheduled ouster.
• Losing your glasses sucks. Losing your glasses on the bus, and knowing they will be donated to someone in need of glasses but unable to afford them, sucks slightly less.
• Ooh this sounds delicious and delightful. MyBallard announces 2009's "Dinner and Movie" series, with dinner courtesy of Volterra paired with some truly classic food films.

Though the political news of the day is most certainly McCain's ploy to "suspend" his campaign and delay the first presidential debate as well as the VP debate in order to concentrate on the economic crisis, there's other news out today about the plight of Republican candidates this year. According to the New York Times, Washington State Democrats are suing to force Republican candidate for governor Dino Rossi to list his party affiliation on the ballot as "Republican" and not "GOP" which apparently polls higher. more ›

• A couple of Seattle's finest neighborhood blogs are also covering Nickelsville. Blogging Georgetown and West Seattle Blog are both giving thorough coverage to the story.
• Did someone say gumbo? Honest to god, Louisiana-made gumbo in Seattle? Hallelujah! The Central District News has a glowing (tummy-grumble-inducing) review.
• Ballard High graduate Jean Smart won an Emmy last night and MyBallard celebrates the news. In other once-local celebrity news, according to the Big Blog, UW Alumni Anna Faris will host SNL this weekend.

According to a King5-commissioned poll, Barack Obama's lead in Washington is diminishing. Obama's lead has dropped from double digits in June to only four percentage points in the most recent poll. If the election was held today, 49% of Washingtonians would vote for Barack Obama and 45% would cast their vote for John McCain. more ›

There has been several flavors of WTF news from all over today. You have your tragic WTF news, the duh WTF news, and the just truly head-scratching WTF news. Behold: more ›

According to an email we got from the Washington State Democrats today, the state's Attorney General, Rob McKenna, laid out a plan for Dino Rossi to beat Christine Gregoire in November for state delegates at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. In short, according to McKenna, McCain-Palin needs to carry Washington by 10-12 points. "If he fails to carry it by ten or twelve points, Dino doesn't win." Maybe it's scary thoughts like that which convinced the state's Republican party to put out only a "vaguely worded press release" when their booth got trashed at Bumbershoot this weekend. more ›

Throughout the campaign we have been gathering the top political writers in the country, and asking them to discuss the presidential race. Today they discuss the Democratic National Convention. more ›

Did you get a text message? Because we signed up for the damned text, and got nothing. Thank God for our internet addiction, though, because we got it from CNN.com as soon as we got home from being out. Obama chose Biden. We can all exhale. McCain's statment was: "There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama's lack of experience than Joe Biden." And now back to local news... more ›

Throughout the campaign we have been gathering the top political writers in the country, and asking them to discuss the presidential race. Today they discuss the media’s role in American politics. more ›

Actually the weirdest part of the evening at Town Hall came during the Q&A, when someone asked cognitive linguistics professor George Lakoff to talk about the campaign, cognitive-linguistically speaking. more ›

Throughout the campaign we have been gathering the top political writers in the country, and asking them to discuss the presidential race. Today they discuss the end of the Democratic primary, Senator Clinton's future, and a brief look at the general. more ›

This whole thing started way back on January 3, a gray, rainy winter day with a high of 47. Now, six months later in the heat of a gray, rainy summer day with a high close to 60, it will come to an end. more ›

"True Love" by Slightlynorth more ›

Yesterday, this Seattlest headed to the U-District library to meet with other Hillary Clinton delegates (Hillegates?) from the fightin' 43rd, and to learn about what lies between us and the national convention. Because we care, we thought we'd share the info with you. If you're not a Hillegate or Obamegate, you can just skip to reading about other things. more ›

Five years later, it still feels strange and distant; Iraq is still mired in violence--though we argue about whether it's on the wane or the rise--and yet the degree to which it touches on our daily lives seems to have to do more with politics than with the real world consequences of war. Most Americans are so safely distanced from the fighting that we can't wrap our heads around what it's actually like for those of our countrymen whose loved ones are patrolling the streets of Baghdad in body armor as we sit here, comfortably reading about it on a computer screen, let alone what it must be like to be there, as a soldier, or even worse, as an Iraqi. more ›