As the presidential campaigns both shift into ground-game mode, actual news is slow in coming. However, the Boston Herald has an interesting story about John McCain’s VP pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The paper’s Laura Crimaldi reports that Palin spent $51,000 in taxpayer money to remodel the governor’s mansion in Juneau, as well as her offices in the state capital and Anchorage. The McCain-Palin campaign claims they’re all “routine” expenses.

Also, The Wall Street Journal’s T.W. Farnam examines donations from an often-overlooked group: American Indian tribes. He finds that they’ve given Barack Obama more than $1 million. John McCain hasn’t taken money from tribes ever since his 2006 chairmanship of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

In the closing days of the race, Campaign Money Watch’s new ad on John McCain’s ties to gambling interests is getting attention from the media. National Journal’s Amy Harder is among those recently writing up the ad, following up on reports by The Washington Post, Politico, and the New York Daily News.

Still haven’t seen the ad? Here it is:

Happy Columbus Day! The holiday’s arrival means a relatively slow news day, but there are some items worth mentioning.

Catching up on news from the weekend, the “Troopergate” report was finally released late Friday – the Alaska legislative investigation found that John McCain’s VP pick, Gov. Sarah Palin, abused her power in pursuing the firing of a state trooper and removing the state public safety commissioner from his post. Palin has claimed the report cleared her of any ethical wrongdoing, even though the report appears to say the exact opposite.

In related news, the Los Angeles Times’ Kim Murphy reports on Todd Palin’s involvement in the governor’s office, noting that his constant presence made staff members uneasy.

The Boston Globe’s Brian C. Mooney notes that outside groups appear to be playing less of a role in this presidential election than they did in 2004.

Finally, the LA Times’ Mark Z. Barabak and Dan Morain go into detail about what Barack Obama’s fundraising advantage really means – mainly, it has given Obama an overwhelming presence in every battleground state, including a few that were deep red in 2004.

There were rumors last night – spread by top McCain surrogate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), as seen in this Los Angeles Times report – that John McCain use last night’s presidential debate to bring up Barack Obama’s decision to opt out of public financing. That never happened – perhaps the constraints of the format prevented the topic from coming up. But there’s still one debate to go, and one more chance for both candidates to talk about their views on the role of money in politics.

Speaking of Obama’s decision, it appears to be paying dividends in one place: the TV ad war. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza reports that Obama is outspending McCain nearly 3 to 1, including “more than $20 million on television ads in 17 states.”

Obama was able to pull in a little more money for ads after the debate with a little help from Al Gore, The Swamp’s John McCormick reports. The post-debate event at Gore’s residence raised more than $900,000.

Finally, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet reports that last night wasn’t the first time Tom Brokaw had lobbed questions at Obama. The two shared the stage at a private event at Goldman Sachs in 2007. No money was raised there, but perhaps the connections were made that resulted in Goldman Sachs employees topping the list of Obama’s campaign donors.