Obama Up In The Swing States

Farai Chideya

Geoffrey Bennett, NPR

Okay, on tomorrow's show, we're going to do some Voting 101 chat. Part of that will include how our presidential election system works, including the Electoral College. In short, as we know from recent elections, a person can lose the popular vote and still win the presidency because of the way state ballots are compiled and weighted.

Well, Senator Obama has gotten a significant uptick in three of the swing states that could help sway the election.

As the Associated Press puts it:

The Democrat's support jumped to 50 percent or above in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania in Quinnipiac University surveys taken during the weekend -- after the opening presidential debate and during Monday's dramatic stock market plunge as the House rejected a $700 billion financial bailout plan.

Combined, these states offer 68 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory on Election Day, Nov. 4.

A Nice Compliment

On today's show, our political commentators Donna Brazile and Robert Traynham gave me the compliment of saying I would be a good moderator of a presidential debate. I loved it!!!

I did actually co-moderate one presidential debate, the first Democratic Primary debate of 2004. There were about twelve million people running for the nomination. Okay, it was "only" nine, including John Kerry, Al Sharpton, Carol Moseley Braun, and Dennis Kucinich.

The lead moderator was Brit Hume; and the questioners were me, former News & Notes host Ed Gordon, and journalist Juan Williams (of NPR and Fox News). Here's the complete transcript of that debate.

It was a really bizarre experience, I have to admit. One of the reasons I like being in radio is because you don't have to dress up, and specifically, you don't have to dress in a blah-business-blah manner. Nonetheless, when I got this gig, I trotted myself out to Macy's and got two suits: one red and one blue. (I wore the red one. It was kinda cute, actually.)

The event was a Congressional Black Caucus/Fox News debate. The pairing was controversial enough to be boycotted in 2008. I spent my time prepping with the other panelists beforehand at MORGAN STATE ... yaaayyyy! Hometown of Baltimore! Beautiful new auditorium!

Anyway, it's a bit of an out-of-body experience to sit in front of that many people in the audience and the world and quiz the candidates. I have done plenty of TV -- hosting, reporting, and doing analysis -- but this was different. Bizarre, but good. I would definitely do it or something else in the moderating world again.

A Sad Note

Pioneering journalist Nancy Maynard has passed away. She was, among many higher accomplishments, my boss. She supervised me when I was a Freedom Forum Fellow and was studying why young Americans don't get their due in this nation's news coverage. She was an elegant woman with a decisive mind and a great sense of both hard news and culture.

You can read more about her on the Web site of the Maynard Institute, which champions diversity in journalism.

The Institute notes:

Maynard's distinguished work for the New York Post, the New York Times, and occasionally the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour preceded and were eventually outshone by her life partnership with her late husband, Robert C. Maynard. The stylish and polished pair left major positions at the New York Times and the Washington Post respectively, struck out on their own and established a highly recognized institute to attract, train and develop minority reporters, editors and media managers.

The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, now based in Oakland, Calif., has prepared thousands of graduates to enter the nation's newsrooms, including at the Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Nancy Maynard was the institute's first president and served on its board until 2002.

"I think part of her legacy was being one of the early black women journalists at the Times. Of course, also part of her legacy was being co-publisher of the Tribune. That was groundbreaking," said Dorothy Gilliam, a former Washington Post columnist who was a co-founder of the institute. "Part of her legacy was keeping the institute alive in the early years."

In 1983, the journalistic power couple purchased the financially struggling Oakland Tribune from the Gannett Co. For nearly a decade, during which time Nancy Maynard earned a law degree from Stanford University, the Maynards co-published the daily, where they practiced the diversity in staffing and coverage they had been preaching to white newsroom managers. The paper remains the only major metropolitan daily to have ever been black-owned.

My personal condolences to the Maynard family.

Farai Chideya

3:19 PM ET | 10- 1-2008 | permalink

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