Have you always wanted to pen a presidential speech? Do you think the White House transition team lost your résumé?

If you're still angling for the job, we found a way for you to catch the eye of the president's team: Atom.com has a fun little feature called the "Inauguration Speech Generator."

"A grassroots Internet campaign helped Barack Obama get elected," the site says. "Now he's calling for the Internet's assistance one more time — to help him craft the best inauguration speech ever."

So, I decided to put the generator to the test, filled in the Mad Libs-like boxes with important-sounding words like "hope" and "patriots," and voilà! Here's what it would sound like if I got the chance to write Obama's history-making address:

"My fellow Americans, today is a prestigious day. You have shown the world that 'hope' is not just another word for 'country,' and that 'change' is not only something we can believe in again, but something we can actually honor. Read more...

FROM YOURHERE.MTV.COM: I wondered if it was the same at the McCain site, but the Obama rally's press area looked like a United Nations congregation. Everyone in their own languages were talking about the importance of this election. One could sense their excitement about the upcoming event. Folks with huge cameras and tall ladders set up shop, and fought for a spot "against the rail." It made me feel like maybe they carried with them the same emotion their countries have for Obama--hope and excitement. One of the news crews had a cardboard cutout of Obama, and photographers crowded and took pictures as if that was their best bet of capturing a clear image of the presidential hopeful--just excited to get started with their important jobs of letting the public know what they were seeing, making sure that you too will see what we saw.

One reporter said "if we win tonight" I said "we?" He corrected himself and said "if Obama wins." I laughed and for a second I felt like we--all of the news crews back there--were all on the same team. They ran to the crowd, back and forth, after every cheer not wanting to miss anything. While I'm sure their quickness helped them capture the news for their employers, I got the feeling that they didn't want to miss anything because they wanted the night to be a complete "I was there" story to tell their grandchildren.

Continue reading more about the rally on YOURHERE.MTV.COM.

Given that it's only 1:30 p.m. here in Arizona and the first polls don't close for another two and half hours, there's plenty of downtime at McCain HQ, which means it's perfectly acceptable to have some lunch.

Luckily, the Republican National Committee was kind enough to lay out an impressive spread for the assembled media, but there's a catch: You've gotta pay $685.

Actually, the money gets you a spot in the press filing center, which later will be humming with reporters on deadline, but at the moment it's playing host to a rather extravagant buffet.

(The fee was even higher for Obama's Illinois HQ — no word yet on the menu.)
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"Sex and the City" star and real-life New Yorker Cynthia Nixon made her way to Florida for this Election Day. Florida Street Teamer Anthony Wojtkowiak caught up with the actress at the University of Miami today, where she was encouraging students to vote.

"I'm just talking to students here, making sure everyone is voting," she told MTV News. "If they haven't, I'm telling them the clock is ticking. Today is D-day. Gotta vote."

Nixon was also there to speak out against Florida's Proposition 2, which would define marriage as being between a man and a woman, effectively banning same-sex marriage. "It's an antigay initiative," said Nixon, who is in a lesbian relationship. Read more...

We've made it past miles of manicured lawns, golf courses and gated mansions to the epicenter of the McCain-iverse, the Arizona Biltmore, where in a few hours (or you know, like, 10), Mac will deliver a speech that's either gonna be a real barnburner or a certified bummer.

McCain will deliver this speech on the lawn you see here (he got married on this same spot 24 years ago). ... Exactly four minutes ago they closed it off to the general public, and tonight, a lucky (and heavily credentialed) 2,500 will be ushered inside to watch it.
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You gotta get up really early to make history. Or, in the case of 28-year-old Tom Krieglstein, stay up late. Hours before anyone else thought to line up for tonight's rally in Grant Park for Senator Barack Obama, the Wrigleyville, Chicago, native proudly took his place as the first person in the queue at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, a full 24 hours before the doors open for the event.

"It's history," he said, explaining why he showed up so early. "Having Obama as president is history, and that's why I wanted to be the first person in line." For two and a half hours, Krieglstein was the line, since his fiancée got sick and bailed on him. Then, around 10:00 p.m., a second person showed up. The #3 slot didn't get filled until early Tuesday morning. Read more...

Shameeka Gray, one of the Iraq war vets featured in "Choose or Lose & Kanye West Present: Homecoming" this summer, also had a chance to attend "A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE" last week. Here's what she thought about the event.

I would first like to say on behalf of myself and all veterans, thank you to MTV and all the participants for making this event very touching and memorable. The performances and messages from the artists and entertainers were great. I would also like to thank the individuals and organizations out there that have implemented and developed ways to help our veterans.

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Remember all those people who gave Diddy a hard time when he ran around in that "Vote or Die" shirt during the 2004 presidential election? Remember how they said that kind of celebrity showboating never works and that young voters don't really pay attention when stars like Christina and Beyoncé tell them to go out and vote? Turns out those people were wrong. Researchers from Washington State University surveyed 305 students on campus and found that "celebrities have the power to motivate civic engagement regardless of their own grasp of the issues at hand" and that the star voting initiatives four years ago helped lower complacency among voters 18-25.

So, do you pay attention to celebrity get-out-the-vote campaigns?

We've more than exhausted our allotment of boxing metaphors to describe the presidential campaign. But here goes one more: Whoever is in charge of picking the music played at Republican candidate Senator John McCain's rallies is either punch-drunk or down for the count.

You'd think after getting smacked down by the Foo Fighters, John Mellencamp, Heart and Jackson Browne (who actually filed suit against McCain for using "Running on Empty" in an ad broadcast in Ohio) that someone, anyone, in the McCain camp would vet song choices at least as thoroughly as they vetted vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin (OK, maybe that's a bad example).

But in the latest song snafu, the guitarist for '80s rockers Survivor has asked the McCain/Palin campaign to stop using their "Rocky III" anthem "Eye of the Tiger" at events, according to a post on the band's official Web site.
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For years, many of us at MTV News headquarters have been lamenting (OK, complaining ad nauseam) that the music community has been way too tame in protesting the sorry state of our world. Sure, acts like Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Green Day, the Dixie Chicks, Nas and Pearl Jam have released protest songs and said things from the stage that have either gotten them censored (Pearl Jam at the 2007 Lollapalooza), or, in the Chicks' case, hounded by their own fans.

But sometimes we wish we'd never said anything and instead just encouraged artists to stick to what they do best — making pretty songs and insisting we not look them in the eye when they pass us backstage. A few cases in point:

Madonna: The pop icon has been railing against Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain and his running mate almost nightly on her current Sticky & Sweet Tour. Read more...