Polls: A CBS/New York Times poll gives Obama a 13-point lead among likely voters -- Obama 52%, McCain 39% -- and shows he's also ahead of McCain among several demographics who voted for Bush in '04, including married women, suburbanites -- and white Catholics, who've voted with the winner for decades. Gallup's daily tracking poll narrows slightly to Obama 51%, McCain 45%, and suggests that, contrary to much punditry, Obama is easily winning the Jewish vote.

Headline of the day, on a piece about how far the intra-McCain campaign blame game has already gone: "GOP forms circular firing squad." One former McCain strategist captures the atmosphere: "The cake is baked. We're entering the finger-pointing and positioning-for-history part of the campaign. It's every man for himself now." There's apparently barely any communication between the campaign and the national party, and much despair at the endlessly changing campaign messages. [Politico]

Then again -- in a piece that admittedly strains to make its point, though it'd be unwise to dismiss the argument -- the New York Times's Adam Nagourney sketches how McCain could still win. [New York Times]

The New York Times announces its endorsement for president. And let me just say this: Bob Barr is one very, very happily surprised man this mor -- oh, sorry, actually they've gone for Obama. [New York Times]

Former Bush press spokesman Scott McClellan endorses Obama too, completing his alienation from his old conservative friends. [Washington Post]

More and more questions emerge over the horrible story of the McCain campaign worker who says she was attacked in the street in Pittsburgh by a black man who carved the letter 'B' on her face and told her: "You are going to be a Barack supporter." Police now plan to administer a lie-detector test over contradictions in her account. "If the incident turns out to be a hoax," writes a senior Fox News executive, "Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."

In the last eight years, we've grown accustomed to expecting that election night will be a down-to-the-wire, all-night drama. But your election night party could be over sooner than you think: here's why November 4 could all be over by 9pm eastern time, or 2am in the UK. [New York Observer]

Unusually, Sarah Palin gives a newspaper interview, insisting the $150,000 clothing bill story is "just bad! Oh, if people only knew how frugal we are..." [Chicago Tribune]

Even if she loses, she wins: "Producers and agents across the entertainment world are discussing possibilities for capitalizing on [Palin's] fame, ranging from an Oprah-style syndicated talk show to a Sean Hannity-like perch in cable news or on radio." [Hollywood Reporter]