DeBarge Unsung

In my neon-colored-clothes days (that would be junior high school), I loved the sounds of a group called DeBarge. In addition to singing dreamy pop love songs, they were all brothers and sisters... well, one sister... and I thought that was crazy cool.

Well, as it turns out, it may have been closer to plain crazy. A new TV One documentary series called "Unsung" tracks the lives of musicians who went down the sad side alleys of life... into drugs, depression, even suicide.

The episode on DeBarge moved me. Not one or two but virtually all of the family members struggled with abuse and/or drugs. At this point, the ones who are still alive are fighting to rebuild their lives, keep a connection to faith, and in some cases to rebuild their careers.

We spoke to brother and sister Chico and Bunny DeBarge about being survivors... the roads they've walked and the prices they've paid.

Take a listen. If you remember the days when DeBarge ruled the airwaves, it's hard not to be moved by their struggle.

Farai Chideya

7:03 PM ET | 12- 2-2008 | permalink

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Do You Have GOOD News In Bad Times?

Maybe you got into a business that actually does BETTER during hard times ... like auto repairs.

Maybe someone steered you to the right job, or you got out of school with just the right credentials.

Maybe you were willing to relocate and found a place that needed your skills.

If you're seeing the UPSIDE of the down economy... let us know. We'd love to put you on air.

By the way, here's what we posted asking for people to share their stories about being laid off. You can follow the same process if you want to tell us your good news.

If you're recently unemployed, we want to get some firsthand stories of how you're coping, looking for work, or changing your spending habits and your life.

Leave us a comment below, and we'll reach out to you.

Or, you can go go to the main page of npr.org and click on "Contact Us." Be sure that in the comment box you use the pull-down menu to tell us the comment is for News & Notes.

Thank you!

Because of our post about people who had lost their jobs, we had a moving conversation today with James Smith, who would consider moving out of the country to find work.

Please take a listen. And James, we definitely want to talk to you again as you continue (and hopefully find a happy end to) your search.

Farai Chideya

6:34 PM ET | 12- 1-2008 | permalink

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Brazile Looks Ahead To Obama Inauguration Celebration

Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist, is also a political contributor for CNN.

E. Pio Roda/Courtesy of CNN

Our contributor, Donna Brazile, has a moving piece on CNN.com today about why the upcoming inauguration is such a big deal to so many people. I just wanted to share. Here are some excerpts:

Is it just me or has everyone living within a 120-mile radius of the U.S. Capitol Building heard from his or her fifth cousin lately?

Lord knows I have. I even had someone who shares my last name contact me, wondering if we were kin.

Relatives, friends, casual acquaintances and complete strangers are suddenly ablaze with desire to connect with Washington area residents: They are all planning to descend on the nation's capital for the inauguration ceremonies of the first black president of the United States, Barack Obama.

There is one hitch, though. They don't have tickets. And, oh by the way, they hint ever so delicately, there are absolutely no hotel rooms available.

After all, for tens of millions of Americans, the Obama presidency is the most important historic event in our lifetime.

For both those who never knew what it was to live through segregation and those who had to drink at separate water fountains, this is the moment to proclaim freedom and love of country. And every single one of them wants to either participate in it or give witness to its rebirth in 2009.

People aren't just fired up and ready to celebrate Obama's inauguration. In what will be a perfect storm of jubilation and celebration, 2009 is the year we celebrate the 200th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's birth, the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the NAACP, and the 80th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King's birth.

A sister of one of my best friends from elementary school e-mailed to tell me that she's bringing three busloads of people from my hometown of New Orleans. Three busloads of folks from my hometown who love the Mardi Gras -- during good and bad times. I told them to come on and we'll see what's cooking on the stove.

Months ago, I thought some new boots would be a nice gift for myself for the holidays, but now all I want for Christmas are gigantic cases of toilet paper, paper towels, and bottled water for the sundry assortment of Braziles trying to make reservations to stay with me.

I've even rewritten my letter to Santa, asking him to send a half dozen air mattresses to accommodate what my Capitol Hill home will transform into come the weekend of January 16 -- a dormitory.

-- Donna Brazile

Farai Chideya

12:09 PM ET | 11-20-2008 | permalink

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Did You Just Get Laid Off?

It's now a common, common, wrenching event.

If you're recently unemployed, we want to get some firsthand stories of how you're coping, looking for work, or changing your spending habits and your life.

Leave us a comment below, and we'll reach out to you.

Or, you can go go to the main page of npr.org and click on "Contact Us." Be sure that in the comment box you use the pull-down menu to tell us the comment is for News & Notes.

Thank you!

Farai Chideya

5:27 PM ET | 11-18-2008 | permalink

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Stoning Death In Somalia

Tomorrow, we're going to look at Somalia on Africa Update ...

The nation is dealing with pirates (yes, pirates, who just hijacked a tanker full of $100 million in crude oil), possible links to al Qaeda, and the aftermath of a horrific stoning death.

As an article in the Sunday Herald summed things up:

ASHA had been raped by three men. The 13-year-old girl from the Somali port city of Kismayo was taken to the police station by her aunt to report the crime. Asha was the one who was arrested. After being held for three days and tried in secret by an Islamic court, Asha was sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery.

Kismayo's rulers encouraged people to come to the football stadium to watch the execution. A lorry load of stones was laid out. Asha, dragged kicking and screaming into the stadium, was buried in the ground. With around 1000 people watching, 50 men stepped forward and started hurling the stones at Asha's head. After a few moments, the stoning was stopped.

Two nurses were asked to step forward and check if she was still alive. She was, they said, so the stoning continued. Somalia has witnessed some brutal scenes in recent years. Ethiopian forces have been accused of assassinating civilians, firing indiscriminately at market crowds, and bombing residential areas. Somali government forces have deliberately killed journalists and human rights workers. All of the armed groups in Somalia have blood on their hands. But Asha's killing has served to highlight the growing power of a hardline Islamist group which analysts believe has links - or wants to have links - with al Qaeda.

The infamous "Black Hawk Down" incident happened in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. (Here's a link to multimedia packages including the original, incredible, Philadelphia Inquirer series on the story.)

With that kind of history and rancor, will the U.S. be able to intervene successfully in Somalia even if it wants to? And with this economy, plus the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will Somalia even rank on the list of U.S. priorities?

We'll take a look tomorrow at Somalia from a foreign policy perspective ... and a human rights one as well.

Farai Chideya

4:46 PM ET | 11-17-2008 | permalink

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Stoning Death In Somalia

Tomorrow, we're going to look at Somalia on Africa Update ...

The nation is dealing with pirates (yes, pirates, who just hijacked a tanker full of $100 million in crude oil), possible links to al Qaeda, and the aftermath of a horrific stoning death.

As an article in the Sunday Herald summed things up:

ASHA had been raped by three men. The 13-year-old girl from the Somali port city of Kismayo was taken to the police station by her aunt to report the crime. Asha was the one who was arrested. After being held for three days and tried in secret by an Islamic court, Asha was sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery.

Kismayo's rulers encouraged people to come to the football stadium to watch the execution. A lorry load of stones was laid out. Asha, dragged kicking and screaming into the stadium, was buried in the ground. With around 1000 people watching, 50 men stepped forward and started hurling the stones at Asha's head. After a few moments, the stoning was stopped.

Two nurses were asked to step forward and check if she was still alive. She was, they said, so the stoning continued. Somalia has witnessed some brutal scenes in recent years. Ethiopian forces have been accused of assassinating civilians, firing indiscriminately at market crowds, and bombing residential areas. Somali government forces have deliberately killed journalists and human rights workers. All of the armed groups in Somalia have blood on their hands. But Asha's killing has served to highlight the growing power of a hardline Islamist group which analysts believe has links - or wants to have links - with al Qaeda.

The infamous "Black Hawk Down" incident happened in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. (Here's a link to multimedia packages including the original, incredible, Philadelphia Inquirer series on the story.)

With that kind of history and rancor, will the U.S. be able to intervene successfully in Somalia even if it wants to? And with this economy, plus the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will Somalia even rank on the list of U.S. priorities?

We'll take a look tomorrow at Somalia from a foreign policy perspective ... and a human rights one as well.

Farai Chideya

4:46 PM ET | 11-17-2008 | permalink

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Change Sans Black Journos?

The new MSNBC slogan.

The New York Times just published an article on MSNBC and its new slogan, "Experience the power of change."

It read in part:

Watch MSNBC, a new commercial for the cable channel intones, and "experience the power of change.".... Jeremy Gaines, a spokesman for the network, suggested that the message was a temporary one.

"'The Power of Change' is a line we're using in an election week promotion campaign. MSNBC has been and will continue to be 'The Place for Politics,'" he said.

It seemed clear that MSNBC, in tapping into the theme of "change," was seeking to appeal to its liberal constituency just as the Fox News Channel seeks to appeal to conservative viewers. On election night, Fox attracted many more viewers than MSNBC -- until Mr. Obama was pronounced the victor. During the midnight hour, when Mr. Obama spoke in Chicago, MSNBC averaged 5.6 million viewers, compared with Fox's 3.9 million.

What I observed, when I watched the commercial that goes along with this new campaign, is that "change" is personified by five white journalists (one of them a woman, Rachel Maddow) standing shoulder to shoulder.

Does "change" come sans key black journalists?

Yes, there are plenty of black opinion analysts on MSNBC and all the cable outlets (not so many Latinos and virtually no Asian or Native Americans though). But there are many fewer black hosts and reporters on television or radio; or key reporters covering the White House or Congress in print and other forms of media.

So: does it matter that there are so few black reporters and hosts at the heart of the era of "change"? I'm not being cavalier here, I'm asking you a real question. Do you care? Or does it not matter?

(We are also living through a total decimation of media as we know it, particularly print, but no media [including online] is exempt. To get the latest info, I've been scanning Richard Prince, Romnesko, and Gawker.)

Since we'll be doing a conversation on race, media economics and coverage on Thursday, this is your chance to give us your take on the issue ... and we'll get some of your wisdom on the air.

Farai Chideya

12:52 AM ET | 11-12-2008 | permalink

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Black/Gay Prop 8 Backlash

Things are getting really ugly in Cali.

Today we spoke with blogger Jasmyne Cannick, who is black and lesbian, about the passage of Proposition 8, banning gay marriage. Unlike other states that had anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives, California actually allowed (after many legal battles) gays and lesbians to marry. And many of them did, up until the day of the election.

The ballot initiative has passed, halting new marriages and raising the question of how the gay couples who got married will be treated.

Here's the thing: Seventy percent of black Californians voted for the ban ... compared to 49 percent of white voters and 53 percent of Latino voters? Experts say black and Latino voters also overwhelmingly voted to pass similar measures in Florida and Arizona.

Now there seems to be a "blame the blacks" backlash by gay and lesbian protesters.

This article says that a black gay male couple carrying "no on 8" were harassed by white gays and lesbians during a protest against the newly-passed gay marriage ban. Another person who also supported gay rights was called the N word.

On our show, Cannick pointed out that for all the money poured into "No On 8" initiatives, people organizing around gay rights did not go in and make their case on a grassroots level in black communities. Another factor is that one person I spoke to -- a gay white man -- said, "We worked hard for Obama. We couldn't do everything"... i.e., that many politically active members of the California gay community felt that Prop 8 was a second priority.

So the blame game goes on ... keep an eye on this one. It could rip the Democratic big tent big time.

(For the record, we also spoke with Lou Engle, founder of "The Call," a Christian Ministry focused on young people. "The Call" held several rallies in support of Prop 8 leading up to election day.)

Farai Chideya

4:44 PM ET | 11- 7-2008 | permalink

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Happy Election Day!!!!!!!!!!!

I voted this morning at 7:30AM in Culver City at a house ... I don't mean some big spacious house ... I mean a regular, modest-sized house where the line wrapped down the block, and a crowd of people of different ages and races -- very much a mirror of this culturally mixed neighborhood -- waited patiently to have their say.

After a night of rain, the skies were bright and clear; the weather cool and pleasant.

I e-mailed my pals all over the country and gave them a shout. No matter what happens, the excitement around voting itself is remarkable.

So: VICTORY! A friend of mine who is in her mid-30s, but has never voted because she simply believed it did not make a difference, walked on into the polls and made it happen. Her only complaint: They'd run out of vote "I voted today" stickers.

Farai Chideya

11:15 AM ET | 11- 4-2008 | permalink

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The Countdown: Day 4: Being There

Farai Chideya

Geoffrey Bennett, NPR

As this campaign comes to an end, I've noted a slew of media stories and personal sharing about the people who won't see this election.

For example, a couple of days ago, novelist Susan Straight wrote in the L.A. Times about the passing of her father-in-law, General Roscoe Conklin Sims Jr.

She said:

He had looked forward to this election. "Oh yeah, we need some change," he told me not long ago. Barack Obama, he said, "could be a Sims, with those ears." Then he laughed.

On Nov. 4, the rest of us will vote here in Riverside -- General's children, his children's children. For the first time, my eldest daughter, named for both her white and black grandmothers, will vote -- but in Ohio, where she attends college. And I know I'll cry, walking home from the polling place at the church down the street from my house, walking past the yellow irises given to me 20 years ago by my father-in-law.

There are those lucky enough to literally stand the test of time. If you keep exploring our blog, you'll see the story of a 109-year-old woman -- the daughter of a slave -- who is voting, and God bless her.

Many of us are beginning to think about the folks we wish would stand with us on this historic voting day, and the wisdom they would share.

A couple of years ago, I did a story about putting together audiotapes of my grandmother's life stories. She was dying of cancer, and those moments we spent together were precious for me AND for our family. I made a CD of her stories and our conversations so other members of the family, now including my cousins' young kids, can go back and listen to do describe what SHE was like as a girl ... plus her thoughts on patriotism, civil rights, and service. Thousands of NPR listeners have heard a little bit of Mary Catherine's wisdom, as well.

I imagine the streets filled with shadows of the men and women who waited for this day but couldn't make it. Maybe as we rush busily to work or school, or to vote, we simply are too caught up in our own time and minds to take that leap of imagination. But stay with me for a minute. ... Imagine that on election day, there are otherworldly throngs watching us do our thing.

Add to that ethereal crowd, one smartly-dressed woman, with a wry smile on her face, and a pressed handkerchief embossed with a holiday decoration in her purse. If she were there, she would not be bitter that she missed this moment. Instead, she would know that she, like so many other people, made this moment. Her struggles and sacrifice and love gave us the gift of making political choices from a broader range of choices than we've ever had before.

P.S.: Add Studs Terkel, oral historian extraordinaire, to those watching from afar. He passed away today at the age of 96.

Farai Chideya

2:34 PM ET | 10-31-2008 | permalink

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The Countdown: Day 10: Gratitude

Although they do not express it quite this way, many people I know are repeating some version of the same prayer. That prayer could be summed up, simply, as: "Thank You, God, For This Job That I Hate."

People who were thinking of busting loose and doing something entrepreneurial or going back to school are now clinging to jobs they loathe. Through gritted teeth, they give thanks for working unpaid overtime; or shifts that take them into unholy hours and keep them from seeing their families; or any number of other stomach-tightening scenarios. They know other friends of theirs have been cut loose, and hiring is tight.

This newfound grudging gratitude reminds me of what's going on in politics. For example, the New York Times has a piece today on whether white Americans in a crumbling steel-town will vote for the black guy. It starts out:

Voting for the black man does not come easy to Nick Piroli. He is the first to admit that.

To the sound of bowling balls smacking pins, as the bartender in the Fallout Shelter queues up more Buds, this retired steelworker wrestles with this election and his choice. A couple of friends, he says, will not vote for Senator Barack Obama.

"I'm no racist, but I'm not crazy about him either," said Mr. Piroli, 77. "I don't know, maybe 'cause he's black."

He winces at himself. "We was raised and worked with the black, the Serb," he said. "It was a regular league of nations. And the economy now, it's terrible."

"I've got to vote for him," he said finally.

Is that the equivalent of, "Thank You, God, For This Candidate That I Hate"?

Gratitude that you have a political choice -- even one you don't love -- can go a long way. Although votes are often shaped by emotions, a vote in and of itself does not carry its emotional charge past the ballot box. What I mean by that is: the vote of someone who hates the candidate, but has to choose him, is just as valuable as the vote of a true believer.

So in that case, perhaps the corresponding prayer would be from politicians:

"Thank You, God, For the Voters That Hate Me"... the ones that could carry a contestant across the finish line.

Farai Chideya

11:24 PM ET | 10-26-2008 | permalink

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You Can Vote However You Like ...

(Okay, the rhyme's not very good, but it's the thought that counts.)

Farai Chideya

6:51 PM ET | 10-21-2008 | permalink

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The Countdown: Day 15: Images

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words ... Even If It's Out Of Context

One of the first impressions many voters had of last Wednesday's final debate was of the facial expressions and body language of the candidates. According to political analysts, Senator Obama often looked tense; Senator McCain alternated between signs of exasperation and a fixed smile.

The day after the debate, our senior Washington editor, Ron Elving, made the point that the judgments about how the candidates looked do affect voters. He said:

"Part of the problem, of course, is what you see on television is not exactly what's happening on stage. What you see on television is often the result of either a one-shot, where they show you one of the two men without the other, and you don't really have a sense of how close anyone might be to him. And then there is the two shot, the split-screen, when you can actually watch the reactions on the face of the candidate who is not speaking. And that is a fairly interesting and sometimes devastating way to watch a debate.

I think everyone recalls who saw the 2000 debates between George Bush and Al Gore, that if you listened on radio or watched strictly the one-shots, you got one impression.
But if you saw the split-screen, you saw Al Gore rolling his eyes and looking heavenward and making a lot of other gestures that people thought were disrespectful and maybe a little bit bush league. That hurt, in that particular case Al Gore more than it hurt George Bush.

So, in the debate last night, a lot of those two-shots, those split-screens showed John McCain looking angry, showed him looking very irritated, showed him looking upset, and staring over what appeared to be the next head just inches away even though the two were seated at opposite sides of a rather large table."

Now a new photo of Senator McCain from Wednesday's debate -- a photo that became one of the most emailed and most popular on Yahoo News -- is reinvigorating the debate over what the eyes see versus what the ears hear.

Here in our office, we spent quite a bit of time working to verify the photo. Members of our show staff, political staff, and research library staff all tried to see if it was real, or a Photoshopped image.

The reality is intriguing. The image is, in fact, real ... but it is also out of context.

If you go to YouTube and look roughly at 4:30 on the time clock on this clip of the debate, you will see a VERY brief different angle on Senator McCain doing what he did in the photo.

When I say brief, I mean perhaps 3 seconds, and the gesture was clearly a quick sign that he did not know precisely where to go on stage. In the video version, he is not in any way interacting with Senator Obama, and the moment is brief and easy to miss.

(Many thanks to a member of NPR's Reference Library staff, Katie Daugert, for tracking down the moment in the video; and to Day to Day staffer Jolie Meyers for finding the original photo.)

There have also been, of course, unflattering photos of Senator Obama, but none at such a critical moment in the campaign:

So, was the photo fair game for a major news organization to distribute if it shows what was not a representative moment in the debate? That's up to the voters (and perhaps media critics) to decide.

We contacted Reuters to ask them how they made the call to send this (incredibly popular) photo out on the wires. Gary Hershorn of the Reuters photo department and communications rep Alexandra Honeysett replied to my questions by email:

1) Is it real?

Yes, the picture is real. It was taken when U.S. Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) reacted to almost heading the wrong way off the stage after shaking hands with Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, October 15, 2008. In addition to the photo, we have television film of the event that confirms Senator McCain's reaction.

2) How do you decide what pictures to run, and do questions of whether a photo might appear mocking, Photoshopped, or staged (even if it is NOT) play into your decisions?

When deciding which photos to publish from a debate or any event, we look for images that tell a story. Our photographers have snapped thousands of photos of both candidates along the campaign trail, and we keep balanced photo files. Inevitably, people will interpret the photos we publish according to their own beliefs, but our job is to tell, or in this case show, the story as it played out.

3) Do you find yourselves syndicating more content that is snarky, or otherwise bloggable, because people want to see it? In other words, either through push or pull, has the tone of your shooting and syndication changed?

Accurate and fair reporting standards are the pillar on which our Reuters News file stands, and our campaign coverage clearly reflects these principles. We record what we see and we have clear editorial procedures that determine what goes out on our photo wire.

I followed up with the question, "What story does this picture tell?"

And Honeysett answered:

"We leave that up to you to decide. :)

Celebrities have faced the onslaught of "gotcha" photojournalism. But there were times that the press followed a far different standard ... showing barely an unflattering shot of John F. Kennedy, or even shooting in a way that didn't show President Roosevelt used a wheelchair.

The times, they are a-changing. So, do we get a good laugh and move on; or do moments like these catch our attention ... and even change our opinion?

Farai Chideya

7:42 PM ET | 10-20-2008 | permalink

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The Countdown: Day 16: Colin Calls It For Obama

A couple of days ago, we blogged about whether former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, would cross party lines and endorse Senator Barack Obama.

Today, on the Sunday morning talk show Meet the Press, he did make that endorsement.

We'll have more on tomorrow's show. Meanwhile, here is a link to the video and part of the transcript.

Gen. Colin Powell on Meet the Press

On NOT Endorsing His Friend Senator McCain; and Endorsing Senator Obama

GEN. POWELL (previous taping vs. new one on Sunday): I'm an American, first and foremost, and I'm very proud--I said, I've said, I've said to my beloved friend and colleague John McCain, a friend of 25 years, "John, I love you, but I'm not just going to vote for you on the basis of our affection or friendship." And I've said to Barack Obama, "I admire you. I'll give you all the advice I can. But I'm not going to vote for you just because you're black." We, we have to move beyond this.

GEN. POWELL (live): Yes, but let me lead into it this way. I know both of these individuals very well now. I've known John for 25 years as your setup said. And I've gotten to know Mr. Obama quite well over the past two years. Both of them are distinguished Americans who are patriotic, who are dedicated to the welfare of our country. Either one of them, I think, would be a good president. I have said to Mr. McCain that I admire all he has done. I have some concerns about the direction that the party has taken in recent years. It has moved more to the right than I would like to see it, but that's a choice the party makes. And I've said to Mr. Obama, "You have to pass a test of do you have enough experience, and do you bring the judgment to the table that would give us confidence that you would be a good president."

And I've watched him over the past two years, frankly, and I've had this conversation with him. I have especially watched over the last six of seven weeks as both of them have really taken a final exam with respect to this economic crisis that we are in and coming out of the conventions. And I must say that I've gotten a good measure of both. In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to deal with the economic problems that we were having and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me, sensing that he didn't have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had. And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She's a very distinguished woman, and she's to be admired; but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.

On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one. And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well. I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He's crossing lines--ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He's thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values.

And I've also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that's been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign. But Mr. McCain says that he's a washed-out terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted. What they're trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that's inappropriate.

On Obama, Islam, Terrorism, and Muslim-American Patriots

Now, I understand what politics is all about. I know how you can go after one another, and that's good. But I think this goes too far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for. And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me. And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration. I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards--Purple Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

So, when I look at all of this and I think back to my Army career, we've got two individuals, either one of them could be a good president. But which is the president that we need now? Which is the individual that serves the needs of the nation for the next period of time? And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities--and we have to take that into account--as well as his substance--he has both style and substance--he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world--onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama.

MR. BROKAW: Will you be campaigning for him as well?

GEN. POWELL: I don't plan to. Two weeks left, let them go at each other in the finest tradition. But I will be voting for him.

What do you think of Powell endorsing Obama ... and his motivation for doing so?

Farai Chideya

4:25 PM ET | 10-19-2008 | permalink

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The Countdown: Day 16: Beige

Novelist and memoirist Danzy Senna contextualizes the narrative of Barack Obama-- a man who is "conveniently black, conveniently not black," as she puts it -- vis a vis her satire essay "The Mulatto Millenium."

She's in conversation with the brilliant-black-Brit-in-America Gary Younge, who says the Obama euphoria among some folks will "create a problem for us."

Meanwhile, enjoy a hunka hunka brooding biraciality, or whatever, Vin Diesel. You can go online and watch his youthful breakthrough short film Multi-Facial. (The vid made me laugh at/pine for the cheezy-fab New York of the early '90s).

Farai Chideya

5:17 PM ET | 10-18-2008 | permalink

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The Countdown: Day 17: Will They Vote?

So, many people have moved on from watching the polls to watching the people.

On our show yesterday, political scientist Mark Sawyer (talking about overseas voting here; and about displaced domestic voters here) pointed out that American elections can be decided within the margin of error. That is, there is always room for error in ... well, just about everything. The margin of error is a guesstimate of how close you can get and still get something right. Polls have margins of error listed on the bottom, based on how many people they sample and in which way. And so do election counts. (Just think of Bush v. Gore 2000, and all those dimpled and hanging chads, and the recount, and the storming of the recount office....)

Anyway, Sawyer's point was that EVERY vote counts ... you never know if you'll be casting a decisive ballot.

Both campaigns are swinging into high gear to get registered voters to the polls. In some ways, the Obama campaign has more to lose, because although he has registered more new voters, those new voters are harder to track and possibly more unpredictable in their behavior.

As part of our voting series, we'll discuss more about how you get out the vote, and how the parties and other groups are doing it in Election 2008.

Farai Chideya

6:19 PM ET | 10-17-2008 | permalink

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McCain/Obama Ad Spoof: The Black Community

Okay, there are a lot of spoofs this season, but this one is by Ill Doctrine's Jay Smooth, who joins us on our Bloggers' Roundtable.

(There is also this hilarious rant about Russell Simmons ... if you can't take a couple of swear words, don't listen.)

Farai Chideya

9:59 PM ET | 10-13-2008 | permalink

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The Countown: Day 23: "Majority-Minority" America

I don't have the zen to accept every moment of my life for what it is. Right now, I am having a hard time avoiding fear, specifically fear of the racial ugliness bubbling up during this election.

I've interviewed Klanspeople and other white supremacists; dealt with the inevitable slings and arrows of being a black woman in America; even found out at one point that one of my supervisors told a white employee that I took his job because of affirmative action.

It's just part of the game, right?

Well, it still stings. Seeing a guy wave around a Curious George doll at a McCain event is one thing. You can chalk that up to gleeful racist mischief... i.e., mean, but stupid.

Seeing Meet the Press, which actually has a black contributors, pretzel itself this week trying to discuss race without any guests of color was tougher.

It's not that black people (or Asians, Native Americans or Latinos) are the only folks who can talk about race. Far from it. It's just that having an all-white panel during a turning point week in the discussion of race in America is a sign that we in the media still need a little help.

Discovery Channel's Ted Koppel pauses as he listens to moderator Tom Brokaw, during a taping of 'Meet the Press' on October 12, 2008 in Washington, D.C.

Alex Wong, Getty Images for 'Meet the Press'

The discussion would have been stronger with a good black commentator. (The clip from guest Ted Koppel's documentary "The Last Lynching," which airs tomorrow on the Discovery Channel, was intriguing though.)

It's nice that the term The Bradley Effect has become, once again, a key part of the American political lexicon. But that term has, over time, come to underplay the strong and irrational currents of emotion that exist around race and, dare I use the word, change.

Despite the polls trending in one pro-Obama direction, the outcome of this race is not written yet, nor should it be. I'm not just talking about the change that a black President could bring. I'm talking about the ongoing demographic change that will bring America, by the Census's latest estimates, a nation without a racial majority circa the year 2042.

In some ways, it's that change that undergirds this nation's fears and insecurities. The year that America becomes "majority minority" may be off, but that change of demographics is going to come.

Nearly a decade ago, I wrote a book called The Color of Our Future that charted that change (predicted, back then, to happen in the year 2050). I talked to teens because I find teens refreshingly unguarded compared to older adults when it comes to talking about race, and also because many of them will be alive when this demographic shift occurs. The cultural shift is occurring far ahead of the actual demographic shift ... and that's got some folks in full flip out mode.

I just found out that my book is going to be excerpted, yet again, in a college reader. It's gratifying to know that although the statistics I talked about have changed, the underlying question of how we will react to the idea of a nation where white Americans are no longer a majority is more pressing than ever.

How will we will evolve emotionally and spiritually as we evolve politically and demographically? Are we prepared to open up, or will we devolve into name calling and a blame game about our problems?

The face of America is changing, but are we ready and are we willing to communicate freely and respectfully during this transition? That's a question that won't be answered on November 4th.

Farai Chideya

1:11 PM ET | 10-12-2008 | permalink

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The Countdown: Days 27 + 26 : Information Overload

My e-mail box is more popular than a celebrity-owned nightclub. Everyone and their grandmother is hitting me up with articles and exhortations about the election.

Information forwarded by e-mail cannot be tracked in the same way an online article can. You can use counters to say how many people have gone to look at a certain article online, and how long they stayed. But when people cut and paste information into e-mails, it's hard to know how many people have seen what and what was forwarded to whom and how many people cut and pasted the whole thing or just snippets. Whew.

An Emmy-award-winning techie friend of mine, Richard Cardran, introduced me to the concept of a folksonomy. A taxonomy is a clearly regulated and delineated system of hierarchical organization, like genus and species. A folksonomy is when individuals use metatags or other ways of marking Web pages and other content online, and then people follow those trails. (Read more here.) I'm interested in how email trails fit into folksonomy.

Anyway, here, in no particular order, are stories that have been e-mailed to me by news organizations, friends, etc.

(I am making this count for two days because I was information overloaded, of course.)

Biden Calls Latest Attacks On Obama Dangerous

Excerpt:

At an event yesterday in Bethlehem, Pa., McCain's remarks about Obama were peppered with shouts of "socialist"; "terrorist"; and "liar."

"We've all heard what he's said," McCain said of Obama. "But it's less clear what he's done, or what he will do."

"No-bama! No-bama!" the crowd chanted in reply.

We had Earl Ofarai Hutchinson on today to talk about his column, "Why Eight Million (or More) African-Americans Are Unregistered":

According to Census figures there were 28 million African-American adults aged 18 or over in 2006. In the 2004 presidential election they made up 12 percent of the voters, or about 13 million voters. That means an estimated 15 million voting age blacks did not vote. The ban on ex felon voting in 15 states further ramps up the number of ineligible blacks. 40 percent of ex-felons banned from the polls are black males. They make up another three million potential black voters. That means an estimated 12 million African-American adults who are either officially barred from voting or decline to vote.

The reason that so many blacks don't vote is chalked up to apathy, laziness, ignorance and cynicism toward politicians. By not voting, the critics say, they betray the struggle and sacrifice of those who fought and in some cases died for the right of blacks to vote. This guilt laden reprimand is much too simplistic.

And from the "is is sourced enough?" column: the liberal superblog Daily Kos is reverbing a story, which says beggar-bankers Wachovia are hurting for cash, yet lending it to the National Republican Committee.

Wachovia Corp., a once-thriving financial giant now teetering on the brink of collapse, confirmed today that it was extending an $8 million loan to the cash-strapped National Republican Congressional Committee for last-minute activites to support GOP House candidates.

Wachovia's decision to lend money to the NRCC -- itself reeling from a damaging financial scandal earlier this year -- is sure to draw charges of favoritism, as Wachovia denies credit and freezes assets for thousands of other customers.

Allegations of favoritism are especially delicate for Wachovia, given the company's disproportionate support of Republican campaigns and organizations.

We'll see if this one gets more investigation and confirmation.

Farai Chideya

12:03 PM ET | 10- 9-2008 | permalink

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The Countdown: 28: Change

28 days left on the old election ticker.
4 weeks to the day.
Debate day too.

I'm watching the wrap-up of the town hall debate, in which both candidates have managed not to throttle each other in front of the Real People in the audience, but stuck to more measured barbs.

The campaign isn't going so easily. Attack ads. Allegations. Blood on the political floor.

Change is the key. Obama started out using the term, but now both candidates are trying to grab it.

Well, it's going to come ... no matter who wins. Isn't this time amazing? A little terrifying? Nothing is promised, and I believe any number of things could still go badly wrong with the process of the election. (As we're covering in our series this month, there is no uniform voting system across the country, and there are a lot of quirks, loopholes and challenges.)

Plus: life, to put it bluntly, is not fair. Sometimes that makes me sad; sometimes it's just something you have to take into account. We spend so much time here on our show talking about the unexpected ways that race, for example, affects politics. Light bends around the issue of race; there is a black hole that skews polls and twists hearts.

I had so many links I wanted to add about stories we're following, but I'll leave us with a thought instead: what are you going to do about the hole we're in? No matter who wins, we've got some heavy lifting to do as a nation and as a world. So what is your role?

I love this quote from Dr. King: "Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve." So, how are you prepared to serve as we face some of the biggest challenges of our time? What are you prepared to ask of yourself ... even if your candidate loses? Or if he wins?

Farai Chideya

10:15 PM ET | 10- 7-2008 | permalink

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Partisan Media?

Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan and I were guests today on KWMU, which is hosting us to do part of NPR's special election coverage. A lot of the callers asked about whether the moderation of the debate would be fair; whether the moderator (Gwen Ifill) would, due to the questioning of her wisdom of doing a book on politics in the age of Obama, over-compensate and give Governor Palin a free ride; and whether the media was fair at all.

Later I was sitting watching former CNN anchor Bernard Shaw give some express straight talk on both the government and the media. He called Congresspeople "almost genetically incapable" of dealing with the nation's problems; and said that he was "staggered" by the pandering and partisanship he sees in journalism.

I was a young star-struck CNN political analyst in '96. During one of the conventions, someone asked me for an autorgraph. I gave it. Bernard Shaw was right by me, and the same people asked him for an autograph. He said no, and then he said (in a pointed aside) that the reason he didn't give autographs was because he was a reporter, not a celebrity.

Bernie was grim faced-on air. He was followed by current CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, who sported a furious smile. Dobbs said that Governor Palin was the victime of "a character assasination attempt by the national liberal media."

We journalists report; the citizens decide. How do you grade the media?

Farai Chideya

6:00 PM ET | 10- 2-2008 | permalink

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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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Cool Liveblogging Technology

I am not a huge fan of the content, but I do really like the BBC's live blogging interface. For one, it's clean and simple design. Secondly, it automatically refreshes so there is no need to navigate away from the page or hit the refresh button.

The BBC has been doing some really innovative work with how they deliver information ... including delivering it online in a variety of African languages including Zulu and Somali.

NPR is also doing some very nice organization of our political content online, thank you, which you can find right here.

Farai Chideya

9:35 PM ET | 09-26-2008 | permalink

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Debate Starts: Economy First

Yesterday, I used the "train wreck" metaphor about the economy in one of our blog posts.

In the opening debate of the final push of this presidential campaign, Senator McCain used that metaphor. It seems that at this critical night, both Senator McCain and Senator Obama are saying that they saw the train wreck coming, and called for preventative measures.

Senator McCain cited his decision to call for the resignation of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Senator Obama said that he'd sounded the warning whistle two years ago, and contacted the Secretary of the Treasury two years ago.

This was supposed to the foreign policy debate, but predictably, moderator Jim Lehrer started out with the economy. On our show today, on the Reporter's Roundtable, we asked the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page and Marcus Mabry of the New York Times whether the American public at large had an appetite for talking foreign policy at a time when the nation was hit so hard economically. (Answer: almost certainly not.)

But Marcus is an experienced foreign correspondent (South Africa and France), as well as a business expert, and as he's said on our air many times, the U.S. economy is hardly uncoupled from that of the world. For example, China holds at least half a trillion dollars in U.S. debt. China hasn't come up in the debate yet ... nor in a serious means, America's debt ... but how the government handles that debt (and how the holders of that debt handle their stake) will surely shape America as well as any kind of bailout.

An interesting rhetorical note: Lehrer keeps asking these gentlemen to speak to each other. Instead, they address the audience with a third-person about their opponent (i.e., "Senator Obama"; "Senator McCain") instead of a second-person "you." I'm not sure why that is ... perhaps they think it speaks more directly to the audience? Or it's less confrontational?

More soon.

Farai Chideya

9:09 PM ET | 09-26-2008 | permalink

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The Financial Crisis Is NOT New

I'm sitting in an airport right now, watching Senator Barack Obama talk to Wolf Blitzer on CNN. An older white woman; a young white man; and two men speaking Japanese sidle up to the flat-screen television to try to find out what the hell is going on.

By that I mean: Since the 9/11 attacks, I have never seen so many people of such a wide cross-section of society freak out at once. It's as if people just realized that the financial fairy godmother was not going to come rescue us from our credit card debt, or the larger issues plaguing the country (and the world).

Of course Senators Obama and John McCain had a tense meeting over the economic rescue package at the White House; and as of this moment, no one knows if the debate scheduled for tomorrow will actually come off. On CNN, Sen. Obama says, "Families were having trouble even before this Wall Street Crisis."

Well, that's for sure.

The economic crisis is like a freight train run amok ... but it's been coming for a long time.

Poor and working people heard this freight train coming. People saw their neighbors losing their homes for months now.

But Wall Street missed the sound.

Washington missed the sound.

The people in Lancaster, California; Detroit; Baltimore; and any number of small towns heard the warning whistle but were tied to the tracks.

This economic crisis has been reality for a long time. A lot of folks just hoped if they shut their eyes, the train would pass and everything would be okay.

Farai Chideya

6:25 PM ET | 09-25-2008 | permalink

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Loaning to Minorities ... Is a Disaster

... at least according to Fox News host Neal Cavuto.

The liberal watchdog organization Media Matters posts this on their website:

Neil Cavuto, host of Fox News' Your World, conflated giving home mortgages to minorities with risky lending practices, suggesting that efforts to increase homeownership among minority borrowers contributed to financial problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Discussing the decision by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Housing Finance Agency to place Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship, Cavuto asked Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) on September 18, "[W]hen you and many of your colleagues were pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn't get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership ... Are you totally without culpability here? Are you totally blameless? Are you totally irresponsible of anything that happened?" Cavuto later said, "I'm just saying, I don't remember a clarion call that said, 'Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.'"

Thanks to the blog, This Black Life, for the link to the story above.

Farai Chideya

6:17 PM ET | 09-25-2008 | permalink

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Money Changes Everything. Or Does It?

Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden stand on stage at the Democratic National Convention.

Farai Chideya, NPR

I was doing my daily dose of Web-surfing today and came across this article on Defamer about Barack (via Barbara)'s $9 Million Dollar Payday. And I quote:

Barack Obama may have California's electoral votes in the bank, but that doesn't mean he won't make a quick trip to the ATM en route to Election Day. In what's expected to be his last rally of Hollywood pals before Nov. 4, Obama will attend a pair of sold-out, back-to-back fundraisers tonight in Beverly Hills. First up: an intimate dinner for 250 at the Greystone Mansion, followed by a trip down the street to the customary Streisand Kiss-of-Death Variety Hour at the Beverly Wilshire. Total miles one-way: Three. Total windfall: Roughly $9 million -- by one estimate, a single-day fundraising record for a presidential candidate. And celeb-culture darling Sarah Palin won't even be there! We break the evening down after the jump.

For all its flak and flubs, the Palin phenomenon has managed to neutralize Obamania since her selection to the GOP ticket on Aug. 29. That much is obvious; the rest, not so much, with a panicked Hollywood dumping out its collective wallet between tonight's $28,500-per-plate Greystone dinner and the $2,500-per-ticket Streisand/DreamWorks fete (with special guest Ben Harper, no extra charge!). Politico's Jeffrey Ressner suggests this is some kind of benchmark, though a one-day record can't be substantiated unless all the checks clear at once. Or something. Just as long as they clear, right?

Sen. Barack Obama accepts his party's nomination before a crowd of thousands.

Farai Chideya, NPR

While polls are flawed and sometimes competing, the McCain/Palin ticket is at least neck and neck with -- and maybe a hair ahead of -- Obama/Biden in the national polls. But it's also worth noting, as many have, that with our Electoral College system there are really state-by-state races, not one national race. And in the Electoral College fight, some polls show Obama/Biden ahead.

Any way you crunch THOSE poll numbers, Team Obama took in a record $66 million last month. But how will the money translate into votes?

No one knows for sure, but it's interesting tracking the numbers.

Farai Chideya

7:29 PM ET | 09-16-2008 | permalink

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Economy: How Are You Buckling Your Seatbelt?

We've been covering the major financial collapses in the investment banking market for two days now, including speaking today to our contributor Robert Traynham and Austan Goolsbee, senior economic adviser to Senator Obama.

When we spoke on Monday to the New York Times' Marcus Mabry, he argued this was "a Wall Street problem; not a Main Street problem." Our regular economics contributor, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, disagreed.

So: what are you doing to buckle your seatbelt for the bumpy economic ride? Are you ACTUALLY cutting back on expenses? (Be honest.) A lot of us (me included) hate cutting back, even or especially when we can spend less as a choice but not a necessity.

What are you doing, or NOT doing, to prepare yourself in case you have extra financial needs or less income?

Farai Chideya

3:11 PM ET | 09-16-2008 | permalink

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Lose Your Home; Lose Your Vote?

Next week, we're going to talk about a new twist on voting access. The question is whether families who've had their homes foreclosed on should be barred from voting in the districts where they lost their homes.

Eartha Jane Melzer of The Michigan Messenger did an investigative report that is making waves. She tracked local Republican Party officials in Michigan and Ohio -- key battleground states -- who plan to challenge voters by cross-hatching their information against the (publicly available) list of foreclosures.

The article reads in part:

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP's effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

"We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses," party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

State election rules allow parties to assign "election challengers" to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they "have a good reason to believe" that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a "true resident of the city or township."

The Michigan Republicans' planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being "true residents."

One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.

"You can't challenge people without a factual basis for doing so," said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. "I don't think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance."

The article is also provoking a series of opposing comments on its message board. One reads:

Being in foreclosure does not necessarily mean you have moved out of the house. Challenging voters based on foreclosure will result in illegally disenfranchising voters who have not changed their address. It will also gum up the works on election day and increase the length of the lines, which is a GOP tactic intended to discourage voting by people who work two jobs, etc, and don't have the ability to go to the polls in the middle of the day.

An opposing view comes from another person posting to the message board:

Isnt it amazing, all this outrage over vote suppression and voter inconvenience. Where was all this concern when ACORN was signing up dead people in Illinois. They are also currently under investigation here in Ohio for their "registration" campaigns in the inner city. To some on this blog who claim people shouold be able to vote anywhere as long as they are registered, That is not permitted for two reasons. One, it eliminates (or tries to) people from voting multiple times...another fine Chicago tradition. Two, there are more items on the ballot than the Presidency. How would you like outsiders voting on your school levies, congressmen and local issues? That would also happen if you lose control of the system. Follow the friggin rules, it's not that tough.

The Obama campaign is expected to respond to this debate ... when and how remains to be seen.

We expect to cover this more in the coming days.

Farai Chideya

11:15 PM ET | 09-11-2008 | permalink

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Palin's "Pastor Problems"

In her brief time in the national spotlight, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been questioned about her parenting (more on that tomorrow); and her ethics, regarding whether she unjustly caused the firing of a government employee.

Now, it seems her faith -- and how and whether it affects her governance -- is under scrutiny.

CNN, among other places, is giving Governor Palin's religion deep scrutiny. CNN online writes of her current church, Wasilla Bible Church:

David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus, was a speaker. He told congregants that terrorist attacks on Israel were God's "judgment" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity. Brickner said, "Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. When a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment -- you can't miss it."

The McCain campaign says his comments do not reflect her religious views. Palin's spokeswoman says she is pro-Israel.

Video has also been running online and on television of the governor speaking at the church she attended while younger, the Pentacostal church Assembly of God. Here's a portion of the video now online.

She praises the crowd as a bunch of "cool-looking Christians ... Look at you, I think that people are going to be interested in Jesus Christ through you because of the way you look." She talks, more substantively, about her wishes that government troops at war are following the will of God. She also prays over the crowd with a Word (i.e., Bible verse) she tells the crowd was given to her by Pastor Ed Kalnin earlier that day.

Pastor Kalnin's become the nexus of the religion issue. An article on a Christian Web site called Women of Grace simultaneously reiterates and attempts to refute the pastor's most scrutinized statement:

In an effort to present Republican vice-presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin's religious affiliations in the same extreme light as those of Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), the press is trying to create a "Jeremiah Wright-style" scandal out of Governor Palin's evangelical roots.

The pastor of Wasilla Assembly of God Church in Wasilla, Alaska, where Governor Palin was a member until 2002, Senior Pastor Ed Kalnin was recently quoted in the media as having suggested during the 2004 presidential campaign that anyone who votes for John Kerry is going to hell.

"I'm not going tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for this particular person [Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry], I question your salvation. I'm sorry," Pastor Kalnin is quoted as saying.

Reporters have interpreted this statement as meaning that anyone who voted for Senator Kerry may not get to heaven.

However, evangelicals say this is an incorrect interpretation. Pastor Kalnin was not saying God would send people to hell for voting for Senator Kerry, but was instead questioning whether a person willing to vote for someone with Kerry's convictions was "saved" in the first place.

By federal law, religious institutions have tax-exempt status only when non-partisan. For example, the IRS challenged the status of a liberal California church following the 2004 elections.

We -- our government and as a people -- are constantly reshaping the line between belief and governance. President Bush's creation of federal faith-based funds is still debated -- and supported by Senator Obama. But how can you tell if an official is blending faith and politics? Is it always wrong, never wrong, sometimes wrong?

So: how will Governor Palin's religious views play out in the final days of the campaign? That's one of dozens of cliffhangers in an election you couldn't make up in fiction.

Farai Chideya

8:53 PM ET | 09- 8-2008 | permalink

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Mommy Wars: Children vs. Career

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Okay, we want your opinion.

We spoke earlier this year with author Rebecca Walker not only about that question, but about her own specific experiences as the daughter of acclaimed writer Alice Walker. It was a frank and controversial discussion.

Now, this political season has put a new twist on the question of whether women can have it all.

Republican Veep nominee Sarah Palin has five children, including a pregnant teenage daughter and a baby son with Down's Syndrome.

Some women (and men) are calling her irresponsible for going out on VP trail at such a critical time for her family.

Others, from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to former Ms. Foundation head Marie Wilson, say it's absolutely fair and forward-thinking for a mother to lead in this way ... and that a man would never be questioned if it were HIS family instead of HERS.

Is Governor Palin sacrificing children for career?

Are American women who lead giving their families a fair shake?

OR, as some studies suggest, are some high-powered American women dropping out of leadership positions to stay home with families?

It's a big debate, and we tackled it in a special roundtable.

Meanwhile... what do you think? Is Governor Palin a role model, or is she risking her family's health? And how have you yourself dealt with the work/leadership/motherhood tug-of-war?

Farai Chideya

4:08 PM ET | 09- 8-2008 | permalink

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Code Pink vs. Republican Convention

Here's just a quick hit from tonight ... I am watching Senator McCain right now.

A couple of protestors from Code Pink just ripped off conservative-looking jackets to reveal pink shirts with lettered with what I presume were anti-war slogans, though I couldn't see them closely enough. Code Pink is a women's anti-war protest group that brought pink-clad women to the protest marches earlier this week.

Video screens showed that one of the women protestors pushed back against the security guards to try to get more time in the hall, but they quickly hustled her out.

By the way, the Writer's Guild of Amer