The Courage to Go Online

This Thursday and Friday I will be participating in the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit in New York City. Jared Cohen, who is a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning staff and organized the event, took some time to sit down with me and answer a few questions about this special summit.

Explain what the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit is all about?  

The Alliance of Youth Movements Summit is about scaling civic innovation.  All around the world, young people are using online, mobile, and digital platforms as tools for empowerment against violence and oppression.  These young leaders are the first pioneers of a new wave of civil society where young people no longer require office spaces, rent checks, paid staff, or paperwork to be able to form a robust organization or movement.  Bringing these organizations together in one place for the first time is a key achievement of the summit.  But it is even more than this.  The 17 delegate organizations coming have also worked collaboratively to produce a field manual on how to use new media to build grassroots movements.  This Field Manual will be available in multiple languages, both in hard copy and in an exciting and interactive online form, which includes a series of how-to videos.  This Field Manual will stand in stark contrast to the how-to guides that groups like Al-Qaeda and others have produced and given to young people.  Using this field manual, these young leaders will unite under a brand new Alliance of Youth Movements organization to push best practices out to civil society organizations around the world and inspire new movements.  Information on the Alliance of Youth Movements is available at youthmovements.howcast.com

In January, James Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs told Fox News: "Al-Qaeda was eating our lunch on the Internet." Have youth groups been able to turn the tide? 

Because of civil society 2.0 organizations-- youth movements that are leveraging online, mobile, and digital tools/platforms -- young people are turning the tide on this.  Al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups are using the Internet the old-fashioned way while these groups are using it the new, Web 2.0 way.  This is the comparative advantage that we have over the terrorists.  If we invite the kind of conversation, this kind of back and forth, that social networking provides, we have an edge over those who simply dictate monolithic and violent ideas. The vast majority of young people are fed up with the violence we have seen in Mumbai, Islamabad, Mexico, and elsewhere.  They are standing up to oppose what is happening in the world--much as young people stood up in the 1960s for change.  But now they have the tools. 
 

You said: "Social networking is bringing civil rights to the Middle East." What did you mean by that?

Online social networks are one of the most important tools for facilitating freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.  All across places like the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America, we are seeing young people use online social networks to create, found, and build civil society organizations.  In some cases, governments welcome this; in others they don't.  But, social networks, blogs and mobile technology reduce the ability of repressive regimes to crack down. As there are no offices to raid, often the people organizing the movement use an alias, and undertake their activities from an Internet café where IP addresses can't be traced back to their homes. Its members can choose how anonymous or non-anonymous they want to be as they participate.  This is not foolproof--many young people have paid the consequences through arrest, intimidation and torture, but organizing and building a movement online is always safer than it is offline.     
 

Do you worry that there could be an end to all of this? Perhaps governments shutting down servers or restricting online freedom?

This is an unstoppable trend. Some repressive governments have arrested bloggers, online networkers, and young activists.  They have censored and blocked sites and deliberately made Internet slower in some cases.  While this has led to some serious crackdowns on individuals and their rights, tech savvy youth have proven their resilience and have responded by learning about proxies and getting around censorship.  Frankly speaking, they are far more savvy at responding to these crackdowns than we would be here in America.  If Facebook got shut down, I would have no clue what to do.  I would give up, because for me Facebook is a luxury that facilitates basic civil liberties that I already have.  But for kids in repressive societies, losing Facebook means losing an important tool for freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.  They will spend hours and hours Googling until they find a way to get around censorship.  This happened in Iran when they shut down Orkut.  Unless a country is like North Korea and totally restricts Internet, the Internet is an unstoppable force.  It is just a matter of time before young people learn how to effectively overcome whatever barriers their government puts in their way. 
 

What should older Americans know about the power of social networking?

Americans have seen the power of online social networking in our 2008 presidential campaign.  Both campaigns used online social networks to organize, put out their messages, raise funds, etc.  What a lot of Americans of my parents' generation say is: "I still don't understand why young people like putting all of this information about themselves online." But having seen the success of these movements in getting young people involved, I don't question the utility.  While this realization is a game-changer and Americans now see the value of social networks as a tool for empowerment, most people believe this is an American anomaly.  The reality is social networks as a tool for youth empowerment is a youth phenomenon that is taking place all across the world.  Americans need to see the connection between what we are witnessing in America and what is happening around the world. 
 

You have done a lot of studying regarding the youth in hot spots of the world. How much access do they have to technology? 

Before I was in government, I wrote a book called Children of Jihad in which I looked at this exact issue in the Middle East. One of the most common misperceptions is that access to technology is the privilege of the elite.  This couldn't be further from the truth.  I have seen nomads with satellite dishes in the desert with wires going to generators, satellite dishes that are larger than homes in some of the most impoverished parts of the world, and street children sharing SIM cards on a mobile phone so that they can split it among five of them.  Internet cafes are popping up all across the developing world and kids will often save up and walk several kilometers to use them.  It is true that Internet is not yet as widespread as mobile phones and satellite dishes, but it is growing the fastest. In places like Africa, kids are actually using the Internet for the first time over a mobile phone, before doing so over a computer.  Skepticism about information technology is always a dangerous thing because ultimately the private sector puts it on the public domain. If we don't engage and leverage these tools now, we will allow violent extremists to have a head start on us. 
 

What do you say to sceptics who say this is all well intentioned but how in any way does it fight terrorism?  

I would remind skeptics that the largest protest against a terrorist organization in the history of the world took place on February 4, 2008, when Oscar Morales, an unemployed engineer from Colombia, used Facebook and other new media to put 12 million people into the streets in 190 cities around the world after only one month of preparation.  I would also remind skeptics that there is no shortage of NGOs around the world who are doing their part to push back on violent extremism, but their major handicap is that their voice is not loud enough.  New media allows for those credible anti-violence voices to amplify their message. 

Why should young Americans use social networking for more than just uploading photos and poking people? 

60 percent of the developing world is under 30 and while those online are an influential minority, the exponential growth of the Internet will soon make them a powerful majority.  Violent extremists committed to shaping youth activities online have already established a presence in the digital space.  They transform chat rooms into recruitment centers, post videos preaching martyrdom, spam images of Muslims being killed around the world, and modify popular online games to reward players for killing Jews and Americans. 

This is all the more reason why young Americans need to reach out to the Middle East's plugged-in youth now. They can saturate cyberspace with alternative forums, activities, groups, and discourse essential to bridging the understanding gap.   For the first time in history, they will have the tools to have a conversation with young people around the world.  We need more dorm room diplomacy, where American youth use online platforms to be diplomats from their college dorm rooms and high school classrooms.   
 

Jared Cohen joined the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff in September 2006. He is responsible for counter-terrorism, counter-radicalization, youth and education, public diplomacy, Muslim world outreach, and the Maghreb.

The Alliance of Youth Movements Summit will take place December 3 to 5 at the Columbia Law School in New York City. Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Columbia Law School, the U.S. Department of State and Access 360 Media are organizing the summit.

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"It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep." -- President-elect Obama on the role of young people in his campaign, 11/4/08

Every place I went covering this election, I was asked the same question. Will young people show up to the polls this time around? I always said, I believe so, the trajectory of the numbers suggests they will and if they don't show up for this election, they never will. Well, my fellow Millennials didn't just show up in 2008, they showed up in a big way.

Overall, young people made up 18% of this year's electorate, according to exit poll data from the National Election Pool, conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for a consortium of news organizations. Although that only represents a 1% increase from 2004, that 1% increase accounts for 2.2 million new young voters. But that is not the important part of the youth vote story. The numbers tell me three important things. In swing states, the youth turnout greatly helped Barack Obama beat John McCain. Latino youth went for Obama 76%-19%, showing that Democrats have firmly entrenched themselves with the nation's fastest-growing voting bloc. And Obama's margin of victory in the 18-29 demographic was astronomical (66%-32%), and suggests that the Millennial generation is convinced by the policies and direction of the Democratic Party.

The results also confirm a long-standing hypothesis: in states where both campaigns were extremely active and directly targeted young voters, young people went to the polls at a higher rate than their "decided state" counterparts.

In 2004, 64% of young people in swing states turned out, as opposed to 49% nationally. Where did the youth vote make a difference this time around? In the hotly-contested battleground states: in Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana. In Virginia, young people made up 21% of the electorate, as opposed to the 17% they made up in 2004. Young voters broke for Obama 60%-39%. In a state where he won by only 198,769 votes, the youth vote played a pivotal role.

In Pennsylvania, young people made up 18% of the electorate, where they were 13% in 2004. That is an increase of 236,000 new youth voters. Young people in Pennsylvania broke for Obama 65%-35%, which contributed to the Senator's win early in the evening.

In North Carolina, young voters went to Obama 74%-26%, that's a 48% difference! Obama won the state by 14,095 votes. It's safe to say young voters delivered the Tar Heel State.

In Ohio, 61% of the youth vote went to Obama and 36% to McCain. Obama won the state by 200,000 votes. Had he not over performed in the youngest demographic, he would have been in for a squeaker.

Lastly, let's take a look at the state where I was stationed on Election Night, the Hoosier State: Indiana. Before two nights ago, Indiana had not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964. In 2000, the state was among the first called for President Bush and in 2004 Bush beat John Kerry there by 21 points. Indiana was for many years a reliable bastion of conservatism. So how did it turn blue? Quick answer: the youth vote. Young people favored Obama in Indiana 63%-35%. Obama won by a measly 25,836 votes. So throw Indiana in with North Carolina as a former red state that went blue on account of the youth vote.

Simply by being the fastest-growing segment of the American population, Latinos also have become the fastest-growing voting bloc. In the 2008 election they made up 9% of the electorate and that number will surely continue to grow in the coming years. Nationally, according to the Pew Research Center, Latino voters now favor Democrats 65%-26% over the GOP, a 39% gap. That is shocking because in 2006, according to Pew, the gap was only 21 points. As a group, Latino youth voted for Obama 76%-19%, a whopping 57% difference. Why is that important? Well, research has shown that people who vote for a particular party when they are young continue to vote for that same party as they grow older. These numbers mean that Democrats could conceivably have a lock on the Latino vote in the future. This will permanently redraw the electoral map, meaning that it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to hold onto states like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida, which have large and growing Latino populations.

My radio partner James Carville said in an article in the Financial Times: "Elections come and go and usually they are without deep or abiding consequence for either party. That is politics. But occasionally there is the election, like this one, that makes a resounding, lasting impact on the US political landscape. The Republican Party, now at an all-time low in popularity, has lost a generation of voters. In 2008, a new Democratic majority has emerged with young voters at the helm. It is a majority that will continue for 40 more years."

Now, I'll be the first to call out Carville when he makes absurd statements (See 60/20 Sports on XM/Sirius: the 'Brett Favre is under more pressure to perform than Aaron Rodgers" episode), yet I think in this case he makes a valid point. Young voters broke for Democrats pretty handily. They delivered two traditionally red states in North Carolina and Indiana and helped secure comfortable victories in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, New Mexico and Nevada. If the Millennial generation continues to vote as they did this time, the electoral map as we know it has changed for good. This also reflects what I have seen on the ground. Young people on both sides of the political aisle told me that they have hated the partisan politics of the past 8 years. They want compromise and they want a better life, not only for themselves but also for the country as a whole. They reject the culture wars of the 60's and believe in an America where it's not that weird to see blacks, Latinos, women, gays and lesbians in prominent leadership positions. That said, it is important to remember that while Millennials may lean Democrat in their political philosophy, they might not always show up to vote. If President-elect Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid decide to make the next four years as partisan as the 2002-2006 GOP years, I personally believe young voters will feel disenchanted again and not show up as they did in 2008.

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The two-year journey has come to an end and many young people feel that for the first time in their lives, they're represented by a leader who is one of their own. It's probably not an overstatement to say that the hopes, dreams and aspirations of millions of young people now lie on the shoulders of this 47-year-old senator from Illinois.

My guess is that the first six months of his presidency will be closely watched. Quite frankly, President-elect Obama must deliver or risk alienating the young voters who ultimately propelled him to office by running up big margins in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio and Florida. It  has been an historic night.

Now the challenge has begun: an economy in peril, two wars and a broken health care system. It's a challenging agenda -- one that no one would willingly want to inherit. Yet, President-elect Obama will wake up tomorrow morning with those challenges ahead. I think I speak for all Americans in wishing him good luck.

At Indiana University, I spoke to two young African-American female students immediately after Obama's victory. Both said they never thought this day would come in their lifetime. But they reminded me that this wasn't about race, but about the American people who -- in their eyes and the eyes of the world -- have changed for the better. I spoke to many young Obama workers who had sacrificed hours of their time for their movement and their belief in country seems to have been validated tonight.

At 11 p.m., when President-elect Obama was declared the winner, jubilant shouts echoed across the grounds of Indiana University. Our cameraman Greg said that it was as if the Hoosiers had won another national title in basketball. And that my friends, is LOUD! Different emotions filled the room -- tears, relief, and sadness amongst McCain supporters. I had a die-hard Democrat come up to me and say that John McCain gave the classiest speech he's ever heard. And without a doubt, Sen. McCain paid a great homage to Obama and effectively demonstrated that he understood the enormity of what had just occurred. Many I spoke to said it would be wise for President-elect Obama to reach out to Sen. McCain in the coming months.

So here we are, two years later after this all began, and the journey is complete. But as is the tradition in politics -- a new one begins tomorrow. What will the next four years bring? We don't know but millions across this country are going to bed tonight quite happy.

 

For more of the day's political reporting, check out NBC's First Read.

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While many national polls are starting to show Barack Obama with a comfortable lead, like Jack White of the White Stripes so famously sang, sometimes "the truth don't make a noise." Though he leads in most polls on the economy, healthcare and energy, Senator Obama still trails on the commander-in-chief question.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that voters have more confidence in John McCain as a potential commander-in-chief by a slim 50 to 48 margin. Obama has closed the gap since early September, when the poll had him trailing John McCain by 11 points on the same question. But take a look at this interesting internal number, from the latest Harvard Institute of Politics poll, which is known as a credible survey of young voters. Among voters 18 to 24, McCain edges Obama on the commander-in-chief question by 3 points, even as he wins the demographic by 26 points.

These numbers tell us that people see John McCain over Barack Obama in the commander-in-chief role. While Obama leads on the economy, easily as important an issue, swing voters in swing states may think about whom they see as commander-in-chief when they pull the lever.

In my recent travels to swing states, to Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and Colorado, I've found a considerable number of folks who are still asking themselves whether or not Barack Obama is "presidential." Presidential in the sense that during a nationally traumatic event (there will be one in the next four years) they trust Barack Obama to lead the United States and deliver that primetime television address. Several factors play into this: experience, record and, perhaps, race.

Elections can be decided by the low-information voter. This voter does not watch MSNBC, would never read this article, and might even make up his or her mind this week. For this voter, image and familiarity are important. This voter will vote intuitively.

Has Obama closed the deal with this undecided voter, and sufficiently sold himself as a "commander-in-chief" figure? The polls show he has tightened the gap, but David Axelrod and David Plouffe have to be troubled by the fact that he is trailing John McCain on the question even among 18-24 year olds. A few Republicans have told me to 'look beyond the polls' when covering this election and to think extemporaneously about it. In this case, looking within the polls, at the commander-in-chief question, validates their point.

Many pundits are calling this race over - heck, even Pat Buchannan wrote an article called "Obama's First 100 Days." But if the pundits are wrong and John McCain ends up pulling this out, I believe it will be because swing voters don't see Barack Obama as someone who has the pedigree to be, well, you guessed it -- commander-in-chief.

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Two weeks to go in the most electrifying campaign in American history (well at least for those of us who have only been around for the last six of them), and many people have asked me the question: Who do you think is going to win? From what we see now, I believe the race will be decided in Colorado.

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Before I begin, I just want to congratulate my dear friend Tom Brokaw on doing a fantastic job as moderator during last night's debate. Of course I'm being a total homer so you would expect to hear that from me, but many students I spoke to last night said they liked how Brokaw kept the candidates moving from question to question, and how he never lost control of the debate. It is not an easy task to tell the future leader of the free world to wrap it up. Brokaw did it with ease and with a respect for the magnitude of the event.

I report to you from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where I watched the debate with students from Wake Forest University last night. The university sits on a beautiful tree-filled campus with elegant buildings, a physical reminder that this is a true center of higher learning.  I decided to travel to North Carolina because recent polls show the presidential race between Senator McCain and Senator Obama here is very close. No Democrat has won North Carolina since Jimmy Carter did in 1976, and I wanted to gauge the situation on the ground to see if North Carolina is actually up for grabs.

Republicans and Democrats at Wake Forest agree that North Carolina can be considered a swing state this year, and contribute its newfound status to a rise in registration among younger voters and African-Americans, as well as to the large number of transplants that have come from the Midwest and New England to live in the state for its favorable tax incentives. One young Republican I spoke with said she believes a lot of moderate Republicans here, especially in the suburbs around Charlotte and Raleigh, are going to vote for Obama. She attributed this to something she called "Bush guilt": moderate Republicans are disappointed with their '04 votes and want to vote for a change candidate. If this is the case, Obama has a very good shot of winning the state. Another student I spoke with said that, while Obama will keep it close, the high number of evangelical voters and the state's inherent conservatism will allow McCain to pull out a victory. Keep in mind that some polls in 2004 had Bush and Kerry running neck-and-neck, but Bush ended up winning the state by 12 points.

There are two interesting local races here that reflect the changing mood of the state. Senator Elizabeth Dole is in an absolute dogfight against State Senator Kay Hagan. In July, Dole had a comfortable 11-point lead according to a Rasmussen poll. Now, the Real Clear Politics average of state polls has Hagan up by a point. This race is as tight as can be. If North Carolinians are willing to vote out the well-known and respected Dole, who replaced the local legend Jesse Helms, it demonstrates how much change really is brewing in the state.

Another race to keep an eye on is in the 8th Congressional District, located in the southern part of the state. In 2006, incumbent Robin Hayes won this race against little-known schoolteacher Larry Kissell by only 329 votes. In the past, the rural 8th district has been fairly conservative, but it has been hit hard by the poor economy and has become more middle of the road. Kissell now leads by 8 points in the most recent Survey USA poll.

These two races show a state that is no longer decisively Republican but very much up for grabs. I am interested to see if "values voters" appear in high numbers, as they did in 2004, or if the economy dominates the day as many are predicting. With 27 days till Election Day, we'll see.

As for the debate, an older person sent me the following: "Both disappointed me. I want Churchill or FDR-- these times call for soaring rhetoric and calls to action. Too small for the times." I thought that was an interesting read on what the Drudge Report calls a boring debate. By now you have read every pundit's opinion of what transpired last night, so I won't bore you with too much more of the same. With our nation facing such challenging times, I expected each candidate to try to make a more personal plea, and explain why he would make the best steward of a country that is now in dire straits. It would have been the brilliant political move. But frankly, all we saw was more of the same: two candidates sticking to their crafted positions, unwilling to appear uncertain or overly romantic.

That's all from North Carolina. See you at Hofstra.

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All you young folks who like some great 80's rock remember the famed Guns N' Roses classic "Sweet Child O' Mine" in which Axl Rose asks: "Where do we go? Where do we go now?" A lot of young Americans are asking the same thing as the economy continues to falter and Wall Street is in its tightest bind since we were in diapers, in October of 1987. On Monday, Congress refused to foot the bailout bills, so the question is: where do we go now?

Martin Wolf says in The Financial Times that knowledge is not the problem."We know how to recapitalise and restructure damaged financial systems. The problem is lack of will. Government must start to show it is in control of events. In the twilight of a failed US administration, that may seem far too much to ask. Winston Churchill, Roosevelt's partner, said: "The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative." The alternatives are now exhausted. It is time for politicians to do the right thing."

What Wolf essentially is saying is that Congress needs to go back to the drawing board and pass a bill that will rescue the American economy. This is no small task. Yet after reading countless articles for and against the bailout, it seem clear that the government has to do something.

So how does all of this affect young people?

If you are a recent graduate, fresh out of college, it is going to be even more difficult to find a job. An unemployed friend of mine who graduated from a top university near the top of his class told me, "I've had two employers tell me that last year I would have been fine, but this is the worst job market in years." I asked Richard Tresch, an esteemed economics professor at BC, what awaits kids in the job market. He told me, "With consolidation and bankruptcy in the financial industry, there will almost certainly be fewer jobs available there. Also, what jobs remain will probably not come with the fairly large bonuses that young workers were receiving."

The bad economy is not only affecting young people trying to get into the business world. It has and will hit hiring for all types of jobs. Small businesses will suffer because they can't secure credit and so cannot grow. Non-profits and social programs will not have as much funding because there will be less capital available to them and their budgets will be down. If you have a job lined up for after graduation, be thankful. These are dire times for young graduates.

How will the bad economy affect student loans?

About six months ago, many private lenders stopped their government-backed student loan programs because of the credit crunch brought on by the housing crisis. Many also stopped loaning money to students privately, without the government's backing. With the current economic collapse, many students will only be able to turn to the government for student loans.

I asked Georgetown finance professor Sandeep Dahiya what would happen to student loans if the economy gets so bad that the government is unable to assist. He told me, "That is a good question. The government is high profile enough that at this point that probably would not happen." But he went on to say, "I do not see private lenders coming back into the student loan market." This is fairly significant because it cuts down on the number of options students have in acquiring a loan. It's not just a slogan, it's common sense that "when banks compete, you win." Student loans vary from college to college. Schools have different agreements with different lenders. That being said, if you need to take out a student loan in the next few weeks, definitely read all of the fine print to see what is the best government-backed deal you can find.

These are not easy times for anybody but young people have it especially hard. If you are graduating from college this May, start to look for a job now. Call your local congressman or senator and see what they are doing about student loans. Look at your loan to make sure it is still viable for next semester.

While the current situation certainly is brutal, I'd like to end on a somewhat optimistic note. I put in a call to Mr. Chris Quick, formerly of the brokerage firm Quick & Reilly, who now works for Bank of America. I asked him what advice he would have for young people in today's market. He responded, "We've been through this before in 1987, when the market fell 22% and values got real cheap. With stock prices so low, this is a chance where you don't need a lot of money to make a good return in the long run. Young people have the opportunity to be really involved in the market because of the Internet. Do your research and invest a few hundred dollars in companies that are going to be around for an extended period of time. In 10 to 15 years, you could make a great return on your investment."

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After a few days of indecision 2008, John McCain has announced that he will in fact attend the first presidential debate at the University of Mississippi, or "Ole Miss." Let's look at some big-time irony here. The first African-American, major-party nominee for the presidency will engage in his first general election debate at a place nicknamed "Ole Miss," which erupted into riots when its first black student, James Meredith, tried to enroll. Now that is what I call progress. The United States has in no way come far enough, but this is a wonderful moment in American history. Now what to look for:

1. How much will moderator Jim Lehrer let the debate be about the economy?

Originally this debate was supposed to stick to foreign policy. Due to the catastrophic economic events of the past two weeks, there is no way that these two candidates won't address the economy. While Obama gets higher numbers on the issue, he is by no means a scholarly economist. John McCain has admitted in past interviews that the economy is not his strong suit. One can understand why both men wanted the first debate to be about foreign policy when the decision was made months ago. Obviously, with just about every important economist saying the economic outlook is dire, Obama will want to try and hammer home the message that Bush and the GOP are responsible and thus, by association, so is McCain. McCain will try to say he is a maverick, a reformer who routinely splits from his party and who will put "country first." Whoever comes across as a real leader on the economic issue will win the debate.

2. Can Obama get his point across without taking a lifetime?

While Senator Obama is an extremely gifted politician, debates are not his strongest suit. When explaining what he'd do, Obama often speaks in a circular way. He explains the problem, what he'd do to fix it and why he is right. That works great for The Charlie Rose Show, but not in a debate setting, where it is all about the quick-hitting sound bite that the media plays on repeat. Obama cannot let McCain rack up all the good sound bites and appear to win the debate.

3. How well prepared is McCain?

My colleagues disagree with me on this, but I honestly think McCain believed there was a decent chance that the debate would be postponed. Maybe I'm young and naive, but I believe that when McCain "suspended" his campaign, he did not prepare for the debate as much as he would have had he kept up his usual schedule. Obama and preparation are almost one and the same; he rarely leaves anything to chance. McCain definitely needs to be on top of his game in order to come across as the better of the two choices.

4. Who can avoid "the big one" and will it happen?

Let's think NASCAR for a minute. "The big one" is the crash that happens at superspeedways, when 40 cars are whizzing around the track at 200 mph. Drivers bet their place and their lives on avoiding the big wreck. McCain and Obama will do the same tonight. Neither wants to pull an Al Gore and sigh - that comes across as arrogant- or do a Bush 41 and check his watch, appearing uncomfortable and bored. Rationally, these pitfalls seem pretty easy to guard against, but since when is a presidential debate easily predictable?

5. Will either of the two go for a knockout blow?

Usually when there are three debates, candidates hold back until the last debate because they don't want to say anything stupid or appear overbearing. Presidential debates are different because more people watch the first one than the other two. So this presents an interesting dilemma: both candidates have the biggest audience they may ever have tonight. They have the opportunity to showcase their abilities and to demonstrate why the other guy is wrong, but do they take advantage of that opportunity? My guess is no. Both candidates may be so guarded that they don't go to great extremes to show the differences between them. Yet with John McCain's recent rebel streak, when the campaign's kept even the most astute media folks guessing, I wouldn't be surprised if McCain went out punching early. 

Watch the debate on NBC and the special coverage on MSNBC. I'll have a web video live from Georgetown University up later tonight on the Nightly News website. Register to vote before October 6^th, swing staters!

By the way, whoever decided to schedule this debate for 9pm on a Friday night should be fired. On Friday nights most people spend time with their family, go out to a bar or a restaurant, watch a movie or a high school football game, read a book or meet up with friends. Young people especially don't have much time for politics on a Friday night. I don't get this decision and I think it is ultimately harmful to our democracy. A lot of people who would have watched will be tuned out of the debate and tuned into their own lives.

I'd like some comments on what people think of the "Commission on Presidential Debates." Is it right that one group gets to decide the place and format of the debates? Should the decision-making about where and when debates are held be more of a democratic process? Should ordinary citizens be more involved? Let me know your thoughts.  

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I was a history major with a concentration in U.S. foreign policy, which is probably why a friend of mine explained the week's economic news to me like this: "Let me explain it to you in foreign policy terms," he told me. "This is Wall Street's 9/11." Those are pretty dire words, but with the stock market plunging over 800 points in three days, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the $85 billion dollar government bailout of AIG...things are bad.

To explain why we got in this situation, I would like to do what history majors always do and use a quote from somebody smarter. Martin Wolf of The Financial Times said today, "What went wrong? The short answer: Minsky was right. A long period of rapid growth, low inflation, low interest rates and macroeconomic stability bred complacency and increased willingness to take risk. Stability led to instability. Innovation - securitisation, off-balance-sheet financing and the rest - has, as always, proved a big part of the story. As Minsky warned, undue faith in unregulated markets proved a snare."

Hyman Minsky was a disciple of John Maynard Keynes, and a guy who understood financial crises. I have a feeling he would think today that we are in pretty bad shape.

So what are the political ramifications of all of this? First and foremost, this takes the focus away from Governor Sarah Palin, which is exactly what the Obama campaign needs and wants. It also puts the media's focus back on a real issue, instead of 'lipstick on a pig.' Most importantly, it gives both candidates a chance to act presidential and define themselves on economic issues when they have the full attention of the voting public.

Another journalist whom I highly respect, Dan Balz of The Washington Post, had this statistic today, "The stock market's plunge has wiped out recent gains and more. The unemployment rate now stands at 6.1 percent and has risen a full percentage point since March. Four years ago this month it was at 5.4 percent and heading down. The economy has been shedding jobs monthly throughout the year."

While that is a sad statistic, it has to be music to the ears of the Obama campaign. Let that sink in. The unemployment rate has risen a point in six months. This dip has occurred under the watch of the Bush administration, and Senator McCain has voted with Bush 90% of the time and even said that the "fundamentals of the U.S. economy are strong." I think I can say objectively that the rise in the unemployment rate undermines the argument that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

Now here's the rub, will the Obama campaign make this its signature issue? Quite frankly, Obama has been all over the place on the economy and while young people I talk to may trust him to deal with the issue more than they trust McCain, they don't really grasp his plan. Meanwhile, McCain has come out with ads suggesting he'll reform Wall Street by reining in corruption. Although McCain is a staunch advocate of deregulation and for years has emphasized the importance of a free market, he has been able to define himself as the maverick who will clean up Wall Street. Obama has defined himself as "The Democrat" when it comes to the economy. He must do more for the public to see him as the candidate who will be Mr. Fix-It.
 
The economic crisis is an early Christmas present to the Obama campaign. If they cannot use it to their advantage, then I will say the road to the White House goes through Sedona, Arizona - not Chicago.
 
I'm going to UVA to shoot a piece about young, undecided, college-educated Virginians. I'll be back next week.

If you are 18, register to vote! Also be aware that for many states the deadline to register is October 6th! Get on it!!!

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In 2008, unity between Republicans and Democrats is a rare sight; unity between John McCain and Barack Obama is nonexistent. In the last three months, three things have brought the two candidates together: one, my late father's funeral mass; two, Rick Warren's Saddleback Forum about faith and God; three, 9/11.

Today, Obama and McCain both toured Ground Zero and tonight they address a forum on the importance of national service. I was fortunate enough to interview both senators in a span of about sixteen hours. Both candidates gave me twelve minutes to ask them about national service and how their own service has influenced their lives as politicians, but more importantly as Americans.

I met up with Senator McCain at a rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He and Governor Palin spoke to a crowd of roughly 7,500 folks and he gave his usual stump speech. After the speech, the senior senator from Arizona walked into a reception room to sit down for our interview. We made some small talk and he emphasized how much he wished he could see my dad covering this election. I agreed and said, "I'd love to see Governor Palin on Meet the Press!" McCain laughed.

My questions mainly had to do with service. I started out by asking about the McCain family's history of service, and the Senator remarked how it went all the way back to the Revolutionary War. He then spoke of sacrifice and the need for people to put "country first" today. I asked him about 9/11, its impact and what we can do to get some of the unity we had in October 2001 back again. I think McCain's response was his most interesting answer. He said, "I think, in all due respect, a little straight talk. We told Americans to go shopping or take a trip. We should have told them this is our opportunity to serve." Quite bluntly, McCain called out the Bush administration for failing to communicate to Americans the importance of service.

Profusely sweating, I walked through the doors of a high school in Norfolk, Virginia for my interview with Senator Obama. Norfolk is in the deep southern part of Virginia and the humidity destroys sweaters like myself. Obama was conducting a town hall inside Granby High School in front of a few hundred people, as well as making an appearance with former Virginia Governor Mark Warner.

The interview was in a classroom and I was putting the finishing touches on my questions when the junior senator from Illinois walked in. He gave me a hug and asked how I was holding up. We made some small talk about road food and his kids. I started off the interview in the room that was probably 98 degrees (if I look sweaty on TV, I apologize, it was hot) by asking him why he turned down big money to be a community organizer. The Senator said he was drawn to be a community organizer because he felt he had wasted time in high school and college, and felt compelled to give back after he learned about issues larger than himself: civil rights, apartheid, poverty. I asked him about sacrifice and if, as Americans, we still have a sense of what it means to sacrifice.

He sounded a lot like McCain when he said, "You haven't heard President Bush talk about the need for people to step up in serious ways. After 9/11 we were told to shop, and that's something I very much want to reverse. In our campaign, one of the things we constantly talk about is not just working on behalf of an election, but working to reinvigorate that sense of citizenship with people."

For me, that was the lede. Two senators from different parties with completely different backgrounds said that there was a missed opportunity for America after 9/11. From a tragic event, we as a nation could have risen to a new high, could have had a civic reawakening, but we did not. So whether or not you support John McCain or Barack Obama, all Americans should be comforted that the next president will echo the words of John F. Kennedy, spoken many decades ago, "We can do better."

Yes we can and yes we will do better.

You can check out my interviews on Today tomorrow morning.

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