Everyone is extremely worked up about Sarah Palin's $150,000-per-month quest for the most elite finery in the land. Republican donors, for example, are upset their money is being spent so ostentatiously. (Just wait until they find out how much of the money is going to gay fashion moguls!) Lawyers and accountants are talking tax liability. But how much are "Hollywood" Barack Obama and wife Michelle spending on their radical chic? Well, you can start with a $1,500 suit for Barack, which contains an opulent 3 percent cashmere and comes from "the largest suitmaker in the United States," And as conservative blog Town Hall reveals, via Wonkette, Michelle may have spent tens of dollars more (or less, depending on whether she accessorizes properly):

Hey we've reached the insane "Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster and she's a lesbian" stage of wild far-right delusion. You heard that Barack Obama had an affair and crazy Michelle Obama shipped the mistress to an island somewhere, right? Hey, did you know Obama's real father was a communist? It's true, because some blogs found some photos of a naked lady that they are pretty sure is Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother, and they used brilliant CSI-style photo analysis to determine that the photos were taken by Communist "Frank," Obama's mentor. This is all proof that Obama is a secret commie.

This could make that planned Nov. 1 appearance on SNL a little awkward: during an interview with a D.C. news station, Barack Obama was prompted by some "gotcha journalism" to dis his Saturday Night Live portrayer, Fred Armisen. "Are you disappointed at all that the person who parodies you on Saturday Night Live just isn't very funny?" said the interviewer, asking the late-night comedy version of "So when did you stop beating your wife?" A trapped Obama then conceded that Armisen's interpretation was definitely a run or two below its high Tina Fey watermark. Clearly, Obama is in the tank for 30 Rock. [WUSA9.com]

This picture of presidential hopeful Barack Obama doing pull-ups in Missoula, MT was taken by the photographer Callie Shell for Time magazine last April. I like it! Shell has snapped an entire collection of wistful shots of the great black/white Hope from Illinois, some grand and sweeping, others mundanely human. Just like those ones of his rival, John McCain! Click through for larger image.

We must admit that when we turned on the television this morning and heard the words, "Today on The View: Bill O'Reilly," we knew it would take more than a loofah to scrub the ensuing political confrontations out of our brains. Still, despite the fact that O'Reilly straight-up called Barack Obama a Communist, the real fireworks came before his arrival, as Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck hashed things out sans the careful moderation of Whoopi Goldberg (who was sick at home today).After Elisabeth claimed that she entertained the thought of voting for Obama following his DNC speech, Joy demurred with a sarcastic "Oh, come on." The resulting "Call me a liar then, Joy!" instantly kicked things into the high-pitched crosstalk zone we know and love from The View, with Elisabeth eventually serving Joy with a mug full of "Barack Obama Kool-Aid" (producing a vocal audience revolt against Elisabeth for the second day in a row). There may be less than two weeks until the election, but how long until Elisabeth finally uses that mug she keeps brandishing on the audience?

Samuel L. Jackson and Barack Obama may have a certain amount of preternatural cool in common, but there's one thing Jackson can do that the presidential candidate can't: curse up a storm! While promoting his new film Soul Men, the actor opined at length on all things Obama, and thanks to Hollywood Outbreak, we have the NSFW audio (caution: as though he were back on the set of a Tarantino film, Jackson lets fly with a torrent of "n-words").You may be interested to hear Jackson hold court on Sarah Palin rallies, how Obama is hamstrung by what society wants to see in a black man, and his greatest fear involving the candidate, but our favorite moment was Jackson's brief, jowly McCain impression. Hey Sam, we hear SNL is hiring — sure, there's that whole racial barrier thing, but that hasn't stopped Fred Armisen from playing Obama, has it?

What has Mark Penn, the scandal-plagued strategy guru for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, been up to as of late? He's back to doing what he does best: conducting useless marketing research. The "2008 Presidential Image Power Survey," conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland and Landor Associates, asked voters to associate the presidential candidates with various brands, including "fictional spies, retail outlets, snack foods and cars." The answers? Voters connected Obama to BMW, Google and Target, while Mr. McCain was compared to Ford, Wal-Mart, and AOL. Translation: Obama is associated with cool stuff; McCain makes people think of a car company about to go bankrupt, a big-box retailer that abuses its employees, and an Internet company that peaked 11 years ago. [AdAge]

And now, for what will presumably be its last trick before tumbling into a three-and-a-half-year election hangover, Saturday Night Live is rumored to have booked Barack Obama for an appearance on its Nov. 1 episode. The cameo replaces the candidate's original guest spot on last month's season premiere, which Obama was said to have backed out of in anticipation of Hurricane Ike. But one blogger's recently posed conspiracy theory is way more fun, suggesting that Lorne Michaels and Obama campaign overlord David Axelrod instead colluded at the time for a November surprise. But like Alec Baldwin, whom Michaels is said to have coaxed to the set last week with Harvey Levin's home phone number and a week's supply of gay venison, Obama, too, is pay-to-play through Election Day:

♦ The election, the economy, and Madonna and Guy all faded into insignificance last night when MTV aired the first clip of The City, and we saw our girl Whitney stepping inside Diane von Furstenberg HQ and getting ambivalently eyeballed by Olivia Palermo (who seems to have a weirdly strong screen presence). [NYO, NYP]
♦ The sixth season of Project Runway has wrapped: Rebecca Romijn, Eva Longoria and Lindsay Lohan reportedly make guest judge appearances, although regular judges Nina Garcia and Michael Kors earn less airtime than before. Yet due to legal issues we can't wrap our mind around much less summarize, no one knows when or where the show will air. [WWD]

Sure, we can usually count on Elisabeth Hasselbeck to make fashion statements that are almost as loud as her constant shouts of "But what about William Ayers...!" Still, even we were impressed by her chutzpah when she showed up to today's edition of The View wearing a salmon-colored t-shirt emblazoned with the words "Great AmeriMcCain Hero." The audience, however, was in a less forgiving mood toward the conservative co-host today.During a discussion about Barack Obama's Titanic-beating money haul, Joy Behar asked Hasselbeck if she thought John McCain would have abstained from the public financing system if he could have made similar money. Her indignant response, "John McCain is a man of his word and a man of honor," drew laughs, groans, and only a smattering of applause. Perhaps chastened by the reaction (as well as a later interruption from Whoopi Goldberg), Hasselbeck announced she was simply going to imagine the rest of her thoughts and not even bother talking. We're imagining that her imagination has something to do with a keffiyeh-clad Obama and four bloody, feminine scalps.

Kudos must be extended to tyro presidential helmer Barack Obama, whose record $150 million fundraising haul in September put him over the $600 million mark and finally allowed his campaign to overcome Titanic's heretofore-insurmountable domestic gross. 23/6 envisions the Variety ad announcing the whammo development; now, the Obama/Biden ticket must hope that with two weeks until the election, no iceberg is in sight (still, he'll never let go, Joe... he'll never let go).

♦ The Rachel Maddow publicity machine rolls on (not that we mind, of course): According to today's Times, she's a "fresh face," MSNBC execs adore her, and her show's ratings have defied all expectations. [NYT]
♦ For reasons we will never understand, Fox & Friends is now more popular than CNN's American Morning and MSNBC's Morning Joe combined. [LAT]
♦ Sarah Palin will sit down with Brian Williams tomorrow. [TVNewser]

Boy another stunt from the Obama campaign, it makes us sick. The radical Democratic candidate is leaving the campaign trail for "more than 36 hours" to head over to exotic, foreign "Hawaii" to look after his 85-year-old grandmother Madelyn Dunham, who is "gravely ill." Mrs. Dunham raised young Obama for many of his childhood years, and she's among the last of his immediate family left. As we all also know, Obama hates his terrible racist grandmother with a fiery angry black radical passion, because she is a racist. We know this because in a frank and honest interview following his smart and important speech on race, he called her a "typical white person" because she is at heart a kind and good person who sometimes feels irrational prejudices. This enraged Geraldine Ferraro, and others. It was a punchline at The Corner for a good six months. As we all know it is very important for a young man of mixed racial background raised by white people to never acknowledge that those white people are anything but idealized perfection incarnate. To admit that you are pained when they reveal deep-set prejudices is nothing but PLAYING THE RACE CARD. It is disgusting that Barack Obama will now have us believe that he "loves" his grandmother. We expect the conservative commentariat to back us up on this point shortly.

A couple of weeks ago, Michael Bloomberg's bid to change term limit laws was going rather smoothy. He'd managed to sweet talk Ronald Lauder into not opposing the measure, members of the City Council appeared to be on board with the plan, and New Yorkers were generally supportive. Now? Not so much. Not only did he spark a scandal over his charity donations and is now facing off against another billionaire with an agenda, public opinion has officially turned against him, too: A poll by Quinnipiac University found that 51 percent of New Yorkers are now opposed to his bid to extend term limits, up from 42% two weeks ago. Bloomberg isn't expected to abandon his bid to remain in City Hall for another four years. But it also isn't too late to endorse Obama, campaign like hell for him over the course of the next two weeks, and pray that a cabinet position will become available when Obama takes office in January!

♦ Who's helping Madonna cope with her nasty, public divorce from Guy Ritchie? Best pal Gwyneth Paltrow, of course. "You know, she's a dear friend, and I'm supporting her in all [the] ways that I can... she's a very good friend." [Us, AP]
♦ In other Madonna news, Guy Ritchie now believes Madonna is spying on him, Madonna is now suggesting she wants to raise her kids in NYC, and Alex Rodriguez wants to move so he can be closer to the love of his life. [The Sun, People, R&M]
♦ Least plausible rumor ever: "Well placed sources" say that if Obama is elected president, he'll consider making Oprah British Ambassador. [TMZ]

Good news, Barack Obama supporters: Your Democratic presidential nominee is winning the campaign for newspaper endorsements in a landslide, with 112 newspapers to rival John McCain's 39! By circulation it's 13 million to 4 million. Sadly, however, those endorsements are almost definitely useless.

The inter-host squabbling has become so heated on The View that there's little a celebrity guest can do to keep up (short of revealing dramatic, semi-incestuous childhood memories), so it's no surprise that producers have been scheduling more and more all-"Hot Topic" editions, as they did this morning. Also no surprise? Things got absolutely bananas today, as Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar reached heretofore-unglimpsed levels of annoyance with Elisabeth Hasselbeck while arguing about a weekend full of juicy political news.

The Wall Street Journal has an 800-word report this morning announcing Eric Schmdt's plans to "hit the campaign trail this week" for Barack Obama. Blah blah blah natural evolution, Google is officially neutral, "I'm doing this personally," says Schmidt, a week after self-appointed Internet Co-Founder Vint Cerf came out of his own Obama closet. What does Schmidt really want? It's buried at the end of the WSJ's report:

In-the-tank ad industry people have, in a Time "The Person of the Year is YOU"-style ripoff, named Barack Obama "Marketer of the Year." He even beat out Zappos.com. Wrap your mind around that, America. [Ad Age]

♦ It's confirmed: Sarah Palin will appear on Saturday Night Live tomorrow. [NYDN]
♦ Yet another tragic consequence of the economic meltdown: Suze Orman is making money off the crisis with big-money endorsement deals. [WSJ]
♦ Playboy is cutting costs. How? With energy-efficient lightbulbs, naturally. [WWD]
♦ The Grammy nominations—not the actual awards, mind you—will be a TV special. [NYT]
♦ A hiring freeze is now in place at Condé Nast. [NYP]