Watch Wednesday's episode of CNN=Politics Daily, The Best Political Podcast from The Best Political Team.

(CNN) – A top enemy of the United States has weighed in on the next president.

In the latest episode of CNN=Politics Daily, Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr reports on a message that surfaced Wednesday that is purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second-in-command. The message insults President-elect Barack Obama using a derogatory term for African-Americans.

White House Correspondent Ed Henry reports from Chicago with the latest on the reaction from the Obama camp.

State Department Correspondent Zain Verjee also takes a look at how former President Bill Clinton’s business deals, speaking engagements, and views on foreign policy issues might impact his wife’s diplomatic work should she ultimately be named the next secretary of state.

Finally, watch Chief National Correspondent John King and several other familiar faces from CNN as they take part in The Daily Show’s spoof of CNN’s Magic Wall.

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CNN's Jessica Yellin appeared live as a hologram before anchor Wolf Blitzer Tuesday night in New York.

(CNN) — It was an election night like none other, in every sense of the phrase. In addition to the obvious — the selection of the nation's first black president — Tuesday night's coverage on CNN showcased groundbreaking technology.

"I want you to watch what we're about to do," CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer told viewers early in the evening's coverage, "because you've never seen anything like this on television."

And he was right. Cue CNN political correspondent Jessica Yellin.

"Hi Wolf!" said Yellin, waving to Blitzer as she stood a few feet in front of him in the network's New York City studios. Or at least, that's the way it appeared at first glance.

In reality, Yellin — a correspondent who had been covering Sen. Barack Obama's campaign — was at the now president-elect's mega-rally along the lakefront in Chicago, Illinois, more than 700 miles away from CNN's Election Center in New York.

It looked like a scene straight out of "Star Wars." Here was Yellin, partially translucent with a glowing blue haze around her, appearing to materialize in thin air. She even referenced the classic movie on her own, saying, "It's like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leia. It's something else."

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The scene in New York's Times Square on Election Night. CNN's coverage on air and online shattered records. (CNN Photo)

(CNN) — The numbers are in, and CNN's election coverage broke records across every platform.

On-air, CNN beat every broadcast and cable network Tuesday night from 8-12:30 a.m. ET with an average of 13.3 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

ABC trailed with 12.5 million, NBC had 11.9 million, Fox News Channel posted 8.1 million, CBS averaged 7.5 million, MSBNC had 6.4 million, and FOX posted 4.7 million. In all, close to 80 million viewers tuned in to watch election night coverage.

CNN’s 2008 Election Night coverage also resulted in the highest primetime ratings in the network’s 28-year history. With an average of 12.3 million total viewers tuning in during primetime (8-11p), CNN had 36 percent advance over Fox News (9 million) and an impressive 109 percent over MSNBC (5.9 million). CNN also easily won the 25-34 and 18-34 demos. Compare to 2004, CNN also had the largest gains in prime time for ages 25-54, doubling its audience, up 102 percent, while FNC only increased 4 percent and MSNBC was up 87 percent.

On Election Day, CNN.com delivered the largest audience in its history with 282.5 million page views and 30 million unique visitors, more than doubling the previous record of 103.2 million and 13.4 million unique visitors on Super Tuesday, according to Omniture SiteCatalyst. CNNPolitics.com also saw record-breaking traffic with 30.1 million page views — a 43 percent increase over its previous record. The Political Ticker, the No. 1 political news blog according to Nielsen Online, generated 8.7 million page views

Meanwhile, CNN.com Live, the Internet's only multi-stream, live video news service, smashed previous records — nearly by three-fold — serving 5.3 million live streams on Election Day, with an additional 6.8 million on-demand video streams.

(CNN) — Watch this clip of CNN Correspondent Jessica Yellin as she's beamed into CNN's Election Center in New York City via hologram from Chicago.

Also, Watch: Singer will.i.am speak with CNN's Anderson Cooper about his impact on Sen. Barack Obama's campaign.

(CNN) — Coming into the home stretch, voters’ views of Barack Obama and John McCain seem relatively locked in place, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday.

With just one full day of campaigning left, 59 percent of voters feel Obama is someone who can bring change; roughly the same number say McCain is not. Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed think McCain has the right experience to be president, but voters remain less certain about Obama: Half the country says the Illinois senator has the experience he’d need in the Oval Office, and nearly the same number do not.

Working in Obama’s favor is the perception that he is as strong a leader as McCain: the two are essentially tied, at 64 and 62 percent.

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CNN turned down the Obama campaign's request to air a 30-minute campaign ad tonight.

(CNN) – The Obama campaign asked CNN to air its 30-minute campaign ad, scheduled for Wednesday evening, but the network turned them down.

“CNN was approached by the Obama campaign and declined their request,” the network said in a Tuesday statement. “We did not want to pre-empt our programming lineup with a 30-minute campaign commercial. We prefer to use our air to continue to cover the campaign, candidates and issues like we always do from all points of view with the best political team on television.”

Fox News Channel – which is a separate network from FOX - was not asked to air the ad. The half hour infomercial which will be airing on CBS, NBC, FOX television, MSNBC, Univision, BET and TV One at a reported cost of $3 million to the campaign. ABC said it couldn’t come to an agreement in time to meet the Obama campaigns requirement to run it in that time slot.

The Obama camp’s purchase drew headlines when the GOP blasted Major League Baseball’s decision to delay the start of its World Series broadcast on FOX television scheduled for that night, if the series were to call for a sixth game, to accommodate the buy. A Fox executive responsible for the buy said the infomercial would replace pre-game programming, but would not delay the airing of the game. Nonetheless, the Republican candidate took a swing. "No one will delay the World Series game with an infomercial when I'm president," John McCain said Tuesday.

The last pre-election programming of this type came during the 1992 race, when Ross Perot paid for similar time blocs on network television shortly before Election Day.

CNN's new Electoral Map.

(CNN) — CNN has shifted the battleground state of New Mexico into Barack Obama's column Wednesday, on the heels of a just-released survey showing the Illinois senator holding a double-digit lead there.

CNN had considered New Mexico a "tossup state," but the re-designation was prompted by a new CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Wednesday showing Obama with a significant 53-40 point lead in the state President Bush narrowly carried in 2004.

The change results in 5 more electoral votes for Obama in CNN's estimate, bringing the Illinois senator's lead over John McCain to 37 electoral votes. (Obama has a total of 226, McCain stands at 189, and 123 electoral votes remain up for grabs).

The CNN Electoral Map is based on analysis from the CNN Political Unit and takes into account a number of factors, including polling, state voting trends, ad spending patterns, candidate visits, and guidance from the campaigns, parties, and political strategists. The list will be updated regularly as the campaign develops over time.

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CNNPolitics.com has received more than a billion page views since launching less than a year ago and the Political Ticker had a record day last Friday.

(CNN) – In less than one year, CNNPolitics.com has registered more than 1 billion page views – another sign that readers are turning to the Internet and CNN to stay current and gain insight into the 2008 race for the White House.

“Just as CNN.com is where people go to find out what’s happening in their world, their communities and their lives, CNNPolitics.com is where people go online to find out what’s happening in politics,” said Manuel Perez, senior supervising producer for CNN.com.

The highly trafficked political news gateway serves as the online destination for the latest news and information happening inside the Beltway and beyond, particularly along the campaign trail.

Meanwhile, on Friday, just days before the start of the Democratic National Convention – the CNN Political Ticker – the one you’re reading right now – broke its all-time one-day traffic record with 2.7 million page views. The Ticker is the No. 1 political new blog on the Web according to Nielsen Online and serves as the nervous center for CNNPolitics.com’s coverage, providing users with a constant stream of political news – as it happens – from hundreds of CNN journalists 24 hours a day every day.

“The ratings success CNN is enjoying on television this election cycle is bolstered by the incredible traffic generated through CNNPolitics.com,” said Alex Wellen, CNN’s deputy political director for digital content. “We’re proud to be the news organization people turn to for the latest political news, whether it’s on television, laptops or mobile phones.”

(CNN) — The Election Express is CNN's mobile bureau. Meet the bus, producer, and captain.

This is your chance to win free swag from CNN.

(CNN)–We want your take on this historic election. In ten words or less (yes, we're counting) please add a comment below or send us an iReport video or audio recording of yourself describing what you see your role being in this election, why you vote, or what politics and this election means to you. In adding your comment below, be sure to include your email address (which will remain unpublished). We will contact the finalists whose quotes will be used in a new promotional campaign and in turn receive a CNN=Politics swag bag (read: free stuff).

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Sparks flew at last night’s CNN Democratic debate.

(CNN) — Monday night's CNN/Congressional Black Caucus Institute Debate was the most watched primary-season faceoff in cable news history, according to early Nielsen data.

Nearly 5 million viewers tuned in to see the three major Democratic presidential candidates battle it out on-stage in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The historic 2008 campaign – with too-close-to-call races in both the Democratic and Republican parties – has drawn unprecedented public interest.

And the candidates’ final meeting before the state’s critical first-in-the-South Democratic primary this Saturday was one of the toughest to date, with heated exchanges all three White House hopefuls — and a no-holds-barred debate format that made for on-stage fireworks.

The forum’s toughest words were between frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, meeting on the same stage after weeks of daily battles waged over the nation's airwaves, and on the front pages.

On the eve of the debate, Obama told an interviewer that he felt as though he were running against both the New York senator and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, whose near-daily attacks on the Illinois senator's record have made headlines throughout the early-voting contests.

The Democratic presidential rivals crossed swords on stage Monday night when Obama accused both Clintons of deliberately distorting his record.

"Now, this, I think, is one of the things that's happened during the course of this campaign — that there's a set of assertions made by Sen. Clinton, as well as her husband, that are not factually accurate," said Obama.

"That is something that I hear all across the country. So when Sen. Clinton says — or President Clinton — says that I wasn't opposed to the war from the start, or says it's a fairy tale that I opposed the war, that is simply not true. …"

Clinton immediately fought back: "But I do think that your record and what you say does matter. And when it comes to a lot of the issues that are important in this race, it is sometimes difficult to understand what Sen. Obama has said, because as soon as he is confronted on it, he says that's not what he meant."
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Tancredo gets a $400 hair cut for charity.

CONCORD, New Hampshire (CNN) - Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo paid 400 dollars for a haircut Friday .

At a Granite State hair salon, the Colorado congressman cut and coiffed his hair to promote the charity efforts of local business owner, David Holden.

Holden, whose 12- year old son Costica has autism, devised the idea after hearing about former Sen. John Edwards' pricey dos. Hoping to poke fun and advance a charitable cause, Holden has asked all presidential candidates to consider a cut.

So far only Tancredo and Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee have shed their gray locks for charity. Holden told reporters that a Democrat is also on this schedule. Tancredo's hair cut fee will be donated to the Autism Society of America.

–CNN New Hampshire Producer Sareena Dalla

CNN was awarded an Emmy for its 2006 Election Night coverage.

(CNN) — The Best Political Team on Television received an Emmy award for CNN’s live minute-by-minute coverage of the 2006 Election Night, in which Democrats took control of both the U.S. House and Senate for the first time in 12 years. The National Academy of Television and Arts and Sciences presented the award Monday night at a ceremony in New York City.

From its 25-foot-wide video wall that provided viewers with real-time information at a glance, to its top analysts and correspondents across the county, to its groundbreaking “Election Night Blog Party,” CNN’s 2006 coverage included the latest newsgathering and news production technology to offer viewers the most content-rich election programming available anywhere.