The presidential campaign was coming to a close in an epic cacophony of advertisements striking notes of hope and fear, patriotism and betrayal as the candidates headed Sunday into a two-day sprint to sway an electorate that remained stubbornly deadlocked. The latest New York Times/CBS News Poll found that Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry remained locked in a statistical tie.

The most expensive presidential advertising campaign in history closes Tuesday with President Bush, Sen. John Kerry, their political parties and allied groups having spent more than $600 million. That's triple the amount spent on TV and radio commercials in 2000. Still, the race remains a statistical tie, even though Democrats have a spending advantage.

Every election season, a debate over a journalistic October surprise takes place. Four years ago, a television station in Portland, Me., reported five days before the presidential election that George W. Bush had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol back in 1976. In the California gubernatorial election last year, The Los Angeles Times published the accounts of 16 women who said that they had been sexually mistreated and humiliated by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the first of the articles running five days before the vote. Last Monday, The New York Times and CBS News reported that the Iraqi interim …

Political mail, hand bills, local radio advertisements and other highly-targeted communiqués have made a full-scale appearance in the final days of the election, augmenting the television commercials that have flooded the swing states for months.

Sen. John Kerry wrapped up a surprisingly one-sided victory in the race for 2004 newspaper endorsements with another solid performance on the closing Sunday of the race. Gaining 22 new papers to President Bush's 18, Kerry holds a 208-169 lead in E&P's exclusive tally.

A new hero is striding to the foreground of marketing: the Super-CMO. Identified in several recent studies and forums, this new breed of chief marketing officer promises to raise the function to what many contend is its rightful place alongside other primary business disciplines -- strategy, finance, IT, operations and HR. And therein lies the challenge to agencies: Can they evolve to complement the needs and skills of the Super-CMO?

Mort Zuckerman is swinging the ax in a new cost-cutting move at the embattled Daily News. The News publisher's latest chop: four more senior managers at the paper. A spokeswoman called the cutbacks a "voluntary buyout." The cuts come on the heels of the departure of Fred "The Duckslayer" Drasner as co-publisher, and the early retirement of the senior vice president of advertising sales, Frances Fried, in the past several weeks.

The delirious fans of the Boston Red Sox are confident that last week's World Series victory has "reversed the curse" supposedly afflicting them since 1918. It also appears the team's first title in 86 years may help reverse a recent trend on Madison Avenue.

Southampton! Summer watering hole of celebs! Land of the giant hedges! Of weedless lawns and those crushed oyster-shell driveways that crunch so nicely -- scruncha! scruncha! -- when you pull in in your Beemer, your Hummer, your Range Rover! Or wait a minute, what have we got here? A Saab and -- huh? you've got to be kidding! -- a Caddy DeVille, one of those big, gas-guzzling hulks with the sofalike upholstery, the Barcalounger suspension. They must still stamp out a few of these boats for the undertakers and the C.P.A.'s . . . all the fogies and the valetudinarians …