Google is the modern American voter's oracle, able to provide an answer to almost any question. Which is why the McCain and Obama teams pay to put their websites on its pages. Hitwise, a Web research firm, helped us dig up the search terms which the campaigns' have selected to show their ads against over the last 12 weeks.The terms reveal what the politicians' Web-savvy advertisers believe is on the public's mind — such deep issues as "sarah palin vogue," "raising mccain lyrics," "obama birth certificate," and "obama as a muslim." The entire list:McCain's paid search terms:

Pop quiz: are you moderating a presidential debate this fall? (Hint: are you old, white, and male?) You may be wondering what you're supposed to ask about! Sure, you could just ask them to talk about their positions on various issues, politely step back as they lay out policy proposals and debate the merits of said proposals, but then everyone will get bored. Your job is to stir shit up and force them both into making gaffes! That is how we decide what to talk about when we talk about campaigns. So. Because we dislike John McCain, personally, we will now explain how best to cause him to say or do something stupid during a debate. But don't worry, Republicans: we have a trick to trip up Obama too! Foreign Policy This one's a gimme, because John McCain doesn't know a goddamn thing about the rest of the world except that he wants to bomb it. There was the "Iraq/Pakistan border" thing, which could maybe be explained by him saying Iraq instead of Afghanistan, and the Czechoslovakia thing, which is pretty much just explained by him being lol old, and mistaking Sunnis with Shiites constantly and also thinking al-Qaeda was training in Iran, which can really only be explained by not giving a shit about minor details like who we're "fighting" besides Muslims in general. But now that his confusion has spread to Western Europe, his handlers should be worried. "John McCain doesn't know where Spain is" is basically a gift to the Democrats. Of course McCain can and will play off any debate question about his gaffes with a condescending "of course I know [blank]" statement, followed by a carefully coached recitation of lessons his handlers drilled into him, which defuses the issue, but it's a clear sign that he'll be tripped up by a different lame gotcha question about world leaders or geography. Do people actually care when a candidate doesn't know "trivia"? Not really, but if he plays further into the "confused old man" routine it'll hurt him way more than idiocy did Bush. The Economy Ask him just about anything about the current Wall Street crisis. Wait for weird disjointed pseudo-Democrat talk about regulation. Followup with any serious statement John McCain has made on the economy during his 100 years as an anti-regulation Republican. Watch him forced to either sell out his Capitalist base or deliver some decidedly not-populist rhetoric. Torture Ask him, Andrew Sullivan style, if he believes the CIA should be allowed to use "interrogation techniques" similar and in some cases worse than the torture inflicted on him by the North Vietnamese. Offer to demonstrate! (Though, of course, 24 viewers definitely think the CIA should be allowed to torture, and McCain is maybe helped by any mention of his POW years, but still, this shit was indefensible.) His Commercials, Campaign, and Surrogates Just ask him if he "stands by" or can defend almost any number of questionable things his campaign has done. As we saw on The View, he will not apologize, but he will look pissed off as he half-heartedly defends shit he used to hate. Which is way worse than apologizing would be. Bonus: How to Trip Up Barack Obama Ask a serious question about a complex and important issue. Make it one that requires Obama to speak extemporaneously. He'll answer, as he thinks through it, with something pretty reasonable, but complex, and he will say "Uh," and then McCain will say "shut up, Brainiac! Babies are tiny angels, why do you want to kill them?" THE END.

What a Gyp: So what did $2,500 get you at last night's wallet-draining Barbra Streisand concert for Barack Obama? Four songs — and not even her best, we hear, with Streisand going all conceptual during a quartet featuring, "When the Sun Comes Out," "Make Someone Happy," "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" and "Shining Hour." Meanwhile, for $26,000 more you could have shared rubber chicken and a playful slap from the candidate himself: "[T]his is not a game. This is not a reality show, no offense to any of you," Obama told an elite, amused gathering of 250 industry insiders. "This is not a sitcom." Expect a fair, even-handed and appropriately unfunny SNL riff on the matter this weekend. [Fox News]

Actress Lindsay Lohan, so politically outspoken these days, recently lobbied some criticism, once again on her MySpace page, against Sarah Palin—the Alaskan warrior poet who, just in the nick of time, stopped a confused John McCain from wandering into a cave full of bears and was named his Vice Presidential running mate as thanks. She said that Palin hates gays ("media-obsessed homophobe!") and that that is bad. And now she wants to join the cause and drum up support for Barack Obama! Trouble is, Obama doesn't really want her help. The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Saturday Night Live has a long, storied history of political satire, a reputation that was only burnished after this past Saturday's well-received Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin skit. The venerable comedy institution has been known to move the cultural dial with some of its depictions, whether it was the spring sketch that famously declared the media to be "in the tank" for Barack Obama or its 2000 impersonation of Al Gore as a "lockbox"-brandishing scold. Still, we're a bit puzzled by some of the quotes from an event held Monday at the Museum of the Moving Image, where Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, and Lorne Michaels met to discuss their satirical process:

Bad news, Obama partisans: a prominent female Hillary supporter has openly defected to John McCain, calling the Democratic candidate "an elitist." That supporter? Lynn Forester de Rothschild. You know, of the Rothschilds. The beloved Real American, salt of the earth banking and finance dynasty. Their very name is synonymous with heartland values like a life of suffocating spiritually empty glamor and excess. So we're sure John McCain is thrilled that he now has the support of Lady de Rothschild. Except, you know, he actually probably is happy about this, because she has lots and lots and lots of money. Oh but Barack Obama still has the support of America's real elites. [Political Ticker/CNN]

Last night Barack Obama had a fundraiser in Beverly Hills. It was terrible! He raised a zillion dollars from these out-of-touch movie stars while decent, hard-working Americans lost their jobs on Wall Street. Famous people were there, like Steven Spielberg and Will Farrell. And BARBRA STREISAND! The McCain blast email paints a portrait of Caligulan decadent excess:

♦ In his new book, Alec Baldwin goes off on TMZ's Harvey Levin, and says that the fallout from his infamously leaked voicemail made him want to commit suicide. [R&M]
♦ Barbra Streisand sang four songs at an Obama fundraiser last night. Attendees included Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. [Fox News]
♦ Anne Hathaway acted like a bit of a diva at an event in Toronto. She also smokes, which her publicist doesn't want you to know. [OK!, R&M]
♦ Sarah Palin's "secretive circle of stylists" dressed her in a $2,500 Valentino jacket for her big speech at the Republican convention. [P6]
♦ Bad news: Hugh Hefner says all three of the Girls Next Door are getting spinoffs. [E!]
♦ Even worse news: Heidi Montag and her sister Holly are "developing a top-secret project" together. [LAT]

Sarah Palin may have railed against the "Washington elite" at the Republican National Convention and bragged about how being an "average hockey mom" from a small town. But she obviously wants to fit in with American aristocracy, because according to Page Six she wore a "shantung silk Valentino [Gravani] jacket worth $2,500" while giving her down-home talk. Shantung silk, whatever the hell that is, sounds like it's from China, while Valentino is clearly Italian, which makes this thing one of the most treasonous garments ever invented. It gets worse!

Today Chris Hitchens's Slate column praises Barack Obama. This is notable because the Hitch would seem to rather have his nuts waxed for a story and/or get waterboarded for a story than be caught praising any politician less unlikely than former Former Undersecretary Of Hobbesean Experimentation/Torture In The Iraq Doug Feith for a story. So over the past year Hitch has generally stuck to dissing Obama for tolerating supposed champions of the oppressed who live in fancy houses like Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton, for marrying someone who was not a good writer in college, for taking that fancy tour of Europe and for resorting to "tiresome demagoguery" in knocking John McCain for purporting to champion the oppressed while living in all those fancy houses,Today though, The Hitch decided to praise Obama's foreign policy. Is O polling so bad that to say nice things about him qualifies as sufficiently pathologically contrarian for Mr. Sarah Palin could be a secret genius? Or maybe Hitch counterintuitively decided to watch Obama on O'Reilly the other day and liked the fancy BBC presenter way Obama pronounces "Pakistan." Actually come to think of it that is probably what happened.

Barack Obama may have California's electoral votes in the bank, but that doesn't mean he won't make a quick trip to the ATM en route to Election Day. In what's expected to be his last rally of Hollywood pals before Nov. 4, Obama will attend a pair of sold-out, back-to-back fundraisers tonight in Beverly Hills. First up: an intimate dinner for 250 at the Greystone Mansion, followed by a trip down the street to the customary Streisand Kiss-of-Death Variety Hour at the Beverly Wilshire. Total miles one-way: Three. Total windfall: Roughly $9 million — by one estimate, a single-day fundraising record for a presidential candidate. And celeb-culture darling Sarah Palin won't even be there! We break the evening down after the jump.For all its flak and flubs, the Palin phenomenon has managed to neutralize Obamania since her selection to the GOP ticket on Aug. 29. That much is obvious; the rest, not so much, with a panicked Hollywood dumping out its collective wallet between tonight's $28,500-per-plate Greystone dinner and the $2,500-per-ticket Streisand/DreamWorks fete (with special guest Ben Harper, no extra charge!). Politico's Jeffrey Ressner suggests this is some kind of benchmark, though a one-day record can't be substantiated unless all the checks clear at once. Or something. Just as long as they clear, right? And just as long as Obama and Co. listen, notes Variety, which informally surveyed industry backers who think their cash may yet (and/or should) buy some long-haul influence:

"Celebrities have taken a serious drubbing from Republicans this political season," The Politico reminds us. (How odd that no one noticed Jon Voigt at the RNC! Or the fact that Robert Duvall narrated that video they showed about "service"? Or the fact that McCain was introduced by famous Hollywood actor Fred Thompson, former Law & Order actor and Republican candidate for President? Or that McCain was in the film Wedding Crashers and used to make dinner dates with Arianna Huffington and West Wing castmembers? Whatever.) Oh, right. Obama's "celebrity" problem. Matt Drudge would like you to know that Obama is raising money with a $28,500 a plate fundraiser featuring—horror of horrors!—Barbra Streisand!!! So now let's care about that, shall we?

While the Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin cold opening attracted some of Saturday Night Live's best notices in years (and best ratings, too — it was the highest-rated season premiere since the 2001 opener following the 9/11 attacks), nothing else that followed had quite the same water cooler buzz. However, if the show had been able to stick to its original plan, there would have been at least one other moment that would have had people talking: a Barack Obama cameo. Though the presidential candidate was forced to cancel due to Hurricane Ike, Michaels reveals to the Washington Post exactly how he would have been used (and what other surprise celebrities got involved as a result):

So the United States is entering financial turmoil, what with all of our banks collapsing and the world's largest insurance company needing a bailout from the State of New York and the stock market tumbling and thousands of fancy jobs on the line. Honestly, though, let's get to the heart of the matter: will this news secretly (or openly!) thrill political partisans? It seems, on its face, that news of Wall Street turmoil helps Senator Barack Obama. And why not? The initial careful ventures into political exploitation of this maybe-catastrophe are already underway. How will it play out? How To Attack Josh Marshall tosses out a readymade almost-true attack line: "The man most responsible for the financial services and banking deregulation that made today possible, fmr. Sen. Phil Gramm, is the man John McCain wants to put in charge of the whole economy." Ok. The "man most responsible" part is defensible, if exaggerated. Gramm deregulated the hell out of the banking sector as a senator. And he lobbied for lax oversight of predatory lending as vice chairman of UBS's i-banking arm. The "man McCain wants to put in charge of the whole economy" bit seems a little less true. We don't know who the hell McCain would let run things. McCain does love Gramm, and Gramm taught McCain everything he needs to know about the economy. McCain's limited grasp of economics basically consists of Gramm's strict anti-regulation philosophies with a bit of pandering to the middle class tossed in. But Gramm is McCain's former campaign co-chair. All signs point to a bigger role played by the less unpopular Carly Fiorina handling the economy in a McCain presidency, even if Gramm's ideas rule the day. Still. That's the kind of fact-checking that gets us nowhere! It's a fine line to use: McCain doesn't get the economy, and the guy he has around to explain it to him is personally responsible for this mess. Some variation on that line will probably be repeated by the Obama campaign over the next week. (Obama has already siezed on a mostly innocuous McCain remark—way to adapt, guys!) Watch Your Own Ties But here are some of the potential pitfalls for Obama. This bit of trivia has already made it to Politico:

Barack Obama's once-commanding lead in New York has shrunk to just 5 points, according to a new survey. The Siena College poll shows Obama leading McCain 46% to 41%, down from Obama's 18-point lead in June. [NYDN]

Rejoice, interwebs! After weeks of intense lobbying, Tina Fey finally gave America what it so loudly demanded: a full-fledged, mercilessly accurate Sarah Palin impression on last night's season premiere of Saturday Night Live. Lipstick jokes? Check. Appalling lack of knowledge about the Bush Doctrine? Check. Akaskan accent by way of Fargo's Marge Gunderson? Check, mate, you betcha. And while there was no sign of Maya Rudolph as Michelle Obama (and Barack Obama had to withdraw from his cameo in the wake of devastation from Hurricane Ike), Amy Poehler proved an invaluable scene partner as a seething, sarcastic Hillary Clinton. Enjoy this sketch while you can, for if Sarah Palin ascends to the White House, both performers will be executed for treason. The video, after the jump:Click to view

Sigh. Stay tuned for a 500-word editorial from Charles Krauthammer about the "Aunt Jemima Doctrine." (yahoo.com)

No one is going to be talking about how he never mastered Twitter when our 44th president is dead, guys. [National Review]

Saturday Night Live certainly has balls. They already booked an unfunny guest host in Michael Phelps for this weekend’s season premiere, and now they’ve decided to compound the non-laughs by bringing in Barack Obama, an unfunny politician. At least he speaks clearly and doesn’t have an underbite like certain 8-time-gold-medal-winners we know. His sketch is still being worked out, but expect lipstick-on-a-pig jokes-a-plenty.Meanwhile the real question remains, will Tina Fey take on the role of Sarah Palin? SNL scribe Simon Rich was already ominously silent on the issue, and now Seth Meyers, the smirkiest Update anchor in recent memory, continues that tight-lipped tradition in the above clip from the Today Show. Despite being pummeled with good-natured jocularity from all four hosts Meyers reveals nothing. I guess we may actually have to tune in and find out. (UPDATE: It seems as though Barack has canceled his appearance on SNL due to Hurricane Ike. Looks like we'll have to content ourselves with Phelps and Phelps alone.)

With its joke-killing April Fool's prank, YouTube took all the fun out of rickrolling forever. But someone has successfully revived the gag, where you trick someone into clicking on a link to Rick Astley's '80s one-hit wonder, "Never Gonna Give You Up." YouTube users Hugh Atkin and Alastair Corrigall edited together excerpts from old Obama speeches to create the illusion that he's actually singing Astley's song to John McCain and the delegates at the Republican National Convention. Rickrolling has always been a dumb, easy prank. Atkin and Corrigall turned it into a smart one. Watch the clip: