There’s a nifty ongoing tally of editorial endorsements over at Editor & Publisher (thanks, guys, it saves us from having to do it). “The Obama lead in editorial endorsements this year turned into a landslide, even a rout,” the site reports. Beyond the total score, there are some interesting optics: “At least 35 papers have now switched to Obama from Bush in 2004, with just four flipping to McCain. The latest majors to flipflop to Obama: the papers in Providence and Fort Worth.” The Chicago Tribune endorsed its first Democrat ever; The Hartford Courant has endorsed a Democrat for only the second time in 244 years. And up in Alaska, where you can see Russia, the state’s largest newspaper—The Anchorage Daily News—has seen its way to endorsing Obama.

In a strong appearance on Meet the Press this morning, John McCain jawed with host Tom Brokaw over polls—he said they show he’s closing the gap—and Sarah Palin’s wardrobe and compared himself to legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. “I feel like Knute Rockne at halftime,” he said. “We are doing fine. You’re going to be up very late on election night.” Over at Fox News Sunday, Republican guru Karl Rove predicted a tough next couple of days for McCain but said he could “turn it around.” “In order for McCain to win, he has a very steep hill to climb,” he said. Meanwhile, on Face the Nation, McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin and former Treasury chief Robert Rubin sparred over the economy.

After attracting an estimated 100,000 people today for a Colorado rally, Barack Obama is set to speak before an even larger crowd this week in Orlando when he brings out the Big Dog. Yes, Bill Clinton has overcome his primary rancor and will stand side by side with the Democratic nominee on Wednesday in key swing state Florida. The Orlando Sentinel reports that campaign staff only arrived in the city on Saturday to work out details but that organizers “are thinking on a big scale...a venue that could accommodate as many people as possible.”

A round-up of depressing news for McCain and the GOP: 1) In McCain’s home state of Arizona, Democrats think they can pick off two more congressional seats, including one held by conservative stalwart John Shadegg. 2) About Arizona…a Democratic poll yesterday had McCain leading Obama there by only four points, 44 to 40. 3) And to Obama’s many newspaper endorsements, let us add The Anchorage Daily News, which has abandoned its native daughter, Sarah Palin. “[F]ew who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth.”

A new film that just opened in Berlin sheds light on a lesser-known casualty of World War II: German women who were raped by the thousands by invading Soviet soldiers. A Woman in Berlin, based on the diary of journalist Marta Hillers—who originally published it anonymously—“is likely to shock the nation, stir resentment against the Russians and provoke a debate about morality in war,” Roger Boyes writes in the London Times. The revenge rapes are not spoken of by Germans, Boyes writes: The subject “upsets too many memories about their grandmothers.” The film opens later this year in the States.

Contrary to popular belief, Hillary Clinton’s near-miss in the Democratic primaries was not this campaign’s big moment for women. “Women will truly have arrived when the most mediocre among us will be able to do just as well as the most mediocre of men,” Judith Warner writes in today’s Times. By that calculus, Sarah Palin, not Clinton, takes the prize. Palin gets by on the sort of things unexceptional white men used to get by on—looks, connections, a charming speaking style. It was said of her: “women want to be her, men want to mate with her.” Says Warner: “And this was the crux of the Palin Phenomenon: she was a breakthrough woman who threatened no one.”

We can’t pretend to be experts on Israel’s complicated political system, but here’s what appears to have just happened: Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni—who as recently elected head of the ruling Kadima Party had to form a coalition government before next week to become prime minister or face a general election—has given up a week early. She told President Shimon Peres at a televised meeting today: “I discovered immediately after the holidays that the process had exhausted itself and I didn’t need more time.” The ultra-Orthodox Shas Party had refused to join a coalition led by the centrist Kadima. Livni has said she is confident that Kadima will emerge victorious in the upcoming election, though polls have shown a lead for the hawkish Likud, led by former premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

Republican apostate David Frum takes to the pages of The Washington Post to say that conservatives need to cut their losses—and that includes John McCain. “We cannot fight on all fronts," Frum writes. “We are cannibalizing races that we must win and probably can win in order to help a national campaign that is almost certainly lost.” The risk is that the Democrats win 60 seats in the Senate and then “stifle opposition by changing the rules of the game.” Frum recommends two immediate remedies: First, shifting every available dollar to senatorial campaigns; and second, a new message “that warns of the dangers of one-party, left-wing government.”

Ralph Nader may not play the spoiler this Election Day, but the perennial presidential candidate still has good news for supporters: His campaign says he broke a Guinness record for most speeches given in a day. Yesterday in Massachusetts, the longtime consumer activist, 74, made speeches of at least 10 minutes in 21 stops, starting at 8:10 a.m. and ending at 11 p.m. Lunch was a Middle Eastern buffet at ZuZu in Cambridge, where he finally got some alone time. “He needed to fuel up and drink some tea to keep his voice,” campaign organizer Matthew Zawisky told The Boston Globe. “Chamomile with honey.” Then it was back to inveighing against what he called “McBama”—accusing both McCain and Obama of selling out to corporate interests.

Two days after Oscar-winning actress and singer Jennifer Hudson’s mother and brother were murdered in Chicago, her 7-year-old nephew Julian King is still missing. The boy’s mother, Julia Hudson, is pleading for his safe return—and her estranged husband, William Balfour, is in police custody and being questioned. “I don’t care who you are, just let my baby go,” Julia Hudson said yesterday, standing with Julian’s father, Greg King. “I just want my son back. He doesn’t deserve this.” Balfour, who was arrested Friday, has been downgraded by police from a “suspect” to a “person of interest” in the shootings.

When you have a warm beverage in your hand, people magically become nicer. In a test conducted by Lawrence Williams, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, subjects were given either a hot or cold cup of coffee, and were “then given a brief fictional description of ‘Person A’ and asked to rate 10 personality traits based on the summary. The hot brew made them more likely to rate people as ‘generous’ and ‘caring.’” According to Williams, the “effect is quite meaningful and astonishing.” Looks like there’s some upside to global warming: The people we’ll be fighting for scarce resources won’t seem quite as evil.

Fun browsing for a Sunday: Time magazine photographer Callie Shell has a wonderful collection of photographs she has shot of Barack Obama. Check out Obama in Muscatine, Ia., waiting in a stairwell while he’s introduced to a crowd for the umpteenth time. There’s also Obama and Michelle on the campaign bus, looking weary but immaculately put together. Shell says she rarely asks for portraits, but convinced Obama to mug one afternoon on his bus. It became the Time’s iconic May 17 cover, declaring Obama the winner of the Democratic nomination.

Have you been wondering, as you watched Saturday Night Live the last few weeks, whether Amy Poehler was going to have her baby right there on national television? Well, the Weekend Update anchor missed showtime by a few hours, welcoming her and husband Will Arnett’s first child, Archie, yesterday evening. “Mother, baby and husband are all healthy and resting comfortably,” NBC said in a statement. The news became part of Poehler’s skit last night, with co-anchor Seth Meyers announcing, “Amy Poehler is not here tonight because she’s having a baby. Now here are tonight's other top stories...” The comedienne will be back at SNL for guest stints after her maternity leave, though not as a regular.

John Updike is still cleaning up the tomatoes hurled at his last outing, Terrorist, so he must feel pretty good about a rave for his latest novel, The Widows of Eastwick, in the Times Book Review. "The genius inheres in the precise observation," Sam Tanenhaus writes, "in the equally precise language, but above all in the illusion that the image has been received and processed in real time, when in truth Updike has slowed events to a dreamlike pace and given them a dream's hyperreality, so that the distinction between the actual and the imagine feels erased." Tanenhaus continues: "This isn't writing. It is magic."

Can John McCain still win? It's a tall order, but Nate Silver lays out in the New York Post four conditions under which it's possible in the campaign's final nine days: 1) Abandon Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa; 2) Attack New Hampshire and New Mexico; 3) Defend Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio, and North Carolina; and 4) Gamble on Florida, Missouri, and Indiana. "Essentially," Silver writes, "McCain needs to subtract 6 points from Obama's margins in every state." He places the odds of that happening at five percent.

Sex addiction is often assumed to be an exclusively male ailment, but women suffer it too—in fact, the London Times reports, 30 percent of all American patients are female. The condition may sound dubious, or even enviable to some, but the addiction element is real. “Comparative brain scans of the love-struck and cocaine-addicted,” the Times writes, “show almost identical areas of brain activity.” The article interviews several women, including Susan Cheever, who just published a memoir on her battle with sex addiction. “If there is a difference between sex and love addiction, I don't know what it is,” Cheever says. “Sometimes people say they just fall in love too frequently. Are they saying they don’t want to have sex with those people? Love addict sounds nicer for sure.”

Roberto Saviano should be sitting on top of the world. His expose of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, is a runaway bestseller in Italy, and has been made into a film that Italy has submitted to the Oscars. One problem: His success has provoked the Camorra to put a price on his head. Ian McEwan is the latest author to sign a petition in support of Saviano. Its 200,000 signatories include Martin Amis, Jonathan Lethem, Paul Auster, and Jose Saramago. “I personally make no distinction between the Camorra and certain extremist religious groups,” McEwan said, “which try to close down discussions with threats of violence.”

According to polling, Barack Obama is positioned to win the highest share of white voters of any Democratic presidential nominee in the past three decades. Gallup's most recent two weeks of polling showed Obama with the support of 44 percent of non-Hispanic whites, the most since Jimmy Carter won 47 percent in 1976. An even larger amount trust Obama to handle the economy better than McCain. And more than eight in ten white working class Dems, the bane of Obama's primary existence, now support him.