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Click here to find out who Barack Obama has chosen as his running mate, and here for some additional detail and background information. McCain is set to announce his running mate shortly, too.

For years, Muslims and Islam have been the center of some of the most heated and controversial debates in the Western world – about things as fickle as faith, democracy, and values. “Clash of Civilizations;” 9/11; the Cartoon Controversy; the veil (a symbol of oppression, or a symbol of unshakable faith); Palestine and Israel; Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran… Therefore, one could have expected Muslims to take center stage during the 2008 elections. But what happened?

To find out, www.tapmag.net (TM) asked Katrin Simon (KS) of the Free University of Berlin a few questions. Katrin Simon is a PhD student in Islamic Studies, specializing in African American Islam, who just returned from New York where she conducted fieldwork.

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Paris Hilton, that is. Reportedly, Mrs. Hilton was not too pleased that John McCain used pictures of herself and Britney Spears in a political advertisement to bash Barack Obama. The campaign commercial attempted to compare Obama’s popularity to that of perceived dim-wits such as the two, with a voiceover weighing in that “he’s the biggest celebrity of the world - but is he ready to lead?”.

McCain’s use of Paris Hilton as an example of someone famous for, well, being famous, is especially slippy as her parents, Kathy and Rick Hilton, have donated $ 4,600 to McCain’s campaign. Talk about a bad choice of image.

Now, Paris Hilton herself has responded to the events, in a rather surprising way.

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The US Presidential elections are finally entering the homestretch after a seemingly endless qualify season. USA Today has laid out the last meters in great detail. They describe how the campaigns try to prepare in advance for the events they know about and how they react to all the unscripted surprises that might happen before it’s all over November 4th. Prime example are the Olympic Games, during which both candidates will find it hard to generate substantial press coverage of their campaigns.

Here’s what fills the calendars of both John McCain and Barack Obama.

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While the public in the US debates an alleged ‘love affair‘ of the mainstream media with the Democratic presidential hopeful, there is absolutely not the slightest doubt about the big crush the German press and public alike have on Obama. The Germans are pretty much a fourteen-year old teenager right now, minus the pimples, but with all the obsessions a young and unexperienced heart can develop when it is captivated by a charming heartthrob for the first time.

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