US election: essential reading
Updated on 06 November 2008
Our pick of the must-read and must-watch reaction, retrospective - and newly leaked campaign gossip.
Tears on the night
Not seen it yet? Barack Obama's victory speech, where the newly crowned president-elect declared that anything was possible, moved his audience to tears.
President Bush's former secretary of state Colin Powell talks of his own tears on hearing an African-American had been elected president, while civil rights activist Jesse Jackson - who was famously caught on microphone saying he wanted to cut Obama's nuts off - wept openly on the night.
Watch the full speech here.
Republican rival John MCain made a graceful concession speech filled with praise for Obama - which drew booing from the crowd on more than one occasion.
Snowclouds, our interactive word cloud generators, instantly show the differences in the two speakers' words. 
"America", "people" and tonight" cropped up again and again in Obama's speech (above); "American(s)", "country", "thank" and "Senator Obama" were the most common words used by McCain (below).
Click the images to generate a full-size version.
Behind the scenes
The gloves are off at Newsweek, where a special team of reporters had exclusive access to both presidential campaign camps for the past year - as long as their findings were kept under wraps until after election day.
Among the secrets from the Republican campaign are tales of Palin-McCain rifts, Palin talking to campaign staff wrapped in a towel, and the truth about her spending sprees.
McCain rarely spoke to Palin, the mag reckons, and his strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed a request for the Alaska governor to speak to at his concession address.
'Wasillia hillbillies'
An "angry aide" talked of "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast" after the Republican candidate allegedly disregarded instructions to buy three suits for the national convention and hire a stylist, instead blowing $20,000-$40,000 on clothes for her husband.
If the official $150,000 shopping bill she racked up wasn't embarrassing enough, one campaign mole told Newsweek the true cost was tens of thousands of dollars higher, as some aides paid for clothes on credit cards and later put in claims for reimbursement.
More Palin-baiting comes from Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron, who speaks out about concerns in the McCain campaign that Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent rather than a country. Watch a clip of him being interviewed on American television here.
Best - and worst - of the ads
The first YouTube-era election was made for ads like never before. As well as delving through the shades of truth and misinformation in the campaign claims, the independent FactCheck.org also takes a light-hearted look at the funniest and most memorable videos.
The wass-up ad - reunited
Four million views and counting...
Those getting a mention include best political pick-up line, for a Mac versus PC-style take on an amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage, least contagious viral campaign (three minutes of independent candidate Ralph Nader talking to a parrot) and possibly the first and last best actress award for Paris Hilton, for her own spoof political broadcast.
History and the future
If the British commemorative papers aren't enough, the front page of the Washington Post's special is available as a .pdf: click below for the full-size image.
Where does this leave the Republican camp? Karl Rove, Bush strategist extraordinaire, unpicks "how the president-elect did it" in the Wall Street Journal, crunching the Obama-voter numbers and rating his chances for the future.
And in the future, Republican leaders will say 2008 was unusual, reckons former Bush speechwriter David Frum - but he predicts the party must make painful and Palin-less changes to some of its social views to appeal to the majority of voters - now college-educated - as well as its constituency of "Joe the plumbers".
Former candidate for the Republican nominations Mike Huckabee - remember him? - takes a different tack: "Our problem is not that our views aren't acceptable, is that many in our party have abandoned the very principles that once drew Americans to trust us," he blogs.
