Chicago Tribune, on Obama election night: “With tickets gone for the Election Night rally in Chicago's Grant Park for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama — the campaign declined to say how quickly they ran out — anxious supporters turned … to other sources online, where their chances seemed slimmer still. Obama's election-night rally will not include live musical acts and will not allow alcohol sales, according to a permit application filed [yesterday]. The document filed with the Chicago Park District said the event will be attended by 7,500 participants and 65,000 spectators. Organizers are asking permission to use amplified sound until 1 a.m. Several vendor tents will offer pizza, hot dogs and hot chocolate.”

AP: NORTH DAKOTA could go blue for the first time since 1964. RealClear calls it a “tossup.”

Paul Kane can shave now: In Game 5, his Phillies won the World Series for the first time since 1980, beating the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-3. “Phinally!” said a poster in the stands. Inky banner: “WORLD CHAMPS! 28 years later, Phillies again are baseball’s best — A season of glory is capped by euphoria.” Champions’ Parade tomorrow. The city’s first championship since the 76ers won the NBA finals in 1983. Other Phanatics: Plouffe, Tapper, Feldman, Politico’s Charlie Mahtesian, ABC’s Karen Travers.

DRIVING THE DAY: Obama releases his “Closing Arguments” this morning.

Jeff Goodby of Goodby Silverstein and Partners — who started in the advertising business as protégé of Hal Riney, the creator of “Morning in America” for Ronald Reagan — now believes that the current leadership of the Republican Party does not represent what Ronald Reagan stood for and, in fact, believes that Barack Obama is more in the mold of Ronald Reagan. Progressive Future is running an ad that Jeff produced with Ronald Reagan’s “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” (“A Republican delivered these words 28 years ago, but today it will take a Democrat to answer them.”) It’s airing in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and is being e-mailed to over 600,000 swing voters. Video here.

Time’s cover shows Obama and McCain as the “The Choice,” with a two-page spread on “Where They Stand” — what Managing Editor Richard Stengel calls “our last chance to evenhandedly lay out the issues for you before you head into the voting booth on Nov. 4. I think of this as a public service for all of our readers and everyone who will vote.”

Time’s John Cloud writes on THE CABINET — “a clandestine group of [seven] wealthy gay political donors.” The magazine calls $27 million a “[c]onservative estimate of the amount that Cabinet members spend each year on gay causes.” They are: David Bohnett, co-founder of GeoCities; Timothy Gill, another tech multimillionaire; James Hormel, the meat heir; Jon Stryker, billionaire grandson of the founder of medical-technology giant Stryker Corp.; Henry van Ameringen, son of a flavor-and-fragrance import magnate; Jonathan Lewis, grandson of the co-founder of Progressive Insurance; and Linda Ketner, heiress to the Food Lion fortune.

David Letterman: “Of course, you know, when they have the election next week, the winner of that election meets Hillary in the finals.”

THE “OBAMERCIAL” — L.A. Times Cathleen Decker: “Barack Obama's 30-minute campaign commercial Wednesday night was not merely a tactical decision to carpet-bomb millions of Americans in pursuit of a few thousand undecided voters who can dictate the outcome of the presidential campaign. Aired on seven network and cable stations, the ad served as a national get-out-the-vote organizing tool for Obama operatives. It offered even the swiftest channel-flipper the chance to see Obama looking presidential, helping to condition voters to that possibility. And once again it proved to John McCain, and everyone else, how Obama's deep pool of campaign cash has allowed him to rewrite the rules of the campaign. … According to an accounting by the Nielsen television research company, the Illinois senator was running more than twice as many ads across the country as McCain, even after the Republican increased his television buys.”