The race has also been historic in fiscal terms — in terms of the ground-breaking amount of money spent to woo the voters in 2008. Then there is the gender factor in the 2008 election — although many an analyst and citizen seem to have forgotten that Geraldine Ferraro was a viable female vice-presidential candidate in our nation's not so distant past. Undoubtedly what many would consider the true historic nature of the 2008 election is the possibility that an African-American could win the presidency.

Attempting to parse what this historic event means offers up a wide variety of responses — not untypical of any attempt to pin down American attitudes toward race. THE WASHINGTON POST ran a story on October 29 about a middle-aged African-American Obama volunteer whose sense of a grand historic moment was slightly undercut by younger volunteers who view the nation as already "post-racial." When NPR ran an election "conversation on race" complaints poured in. The very same discussion led to letters which variously accused the show producers of being in the pay of the McCain campaign and die-hard Obama activists.

Historians and political watchers point to the possibility of a momentous philosophical change that could come along with this election. Their question is: What will the presidency look like? The German media outlet DEUTSCHE WELLE suggests that there could be a sea change in the way America relates to the world at large — positing "The end of the unilateral Bush era." Stateside White House watchers wonder: Will the accumulation of power in the Executive Branch under the Bush administration be reversed? Can it be reversed? Should it be?

The Annenberg School of Public Policy's Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Glenn Loury of Brown University joins Bill Moyers to talk about power, race, politics and history in 2008.

In addition to this scholarly work, Professor Loury is also a prominent social critic and public intellectual. His over 200 essays and reviews on racial inequality and social policy have appeared in dozens of influential journals of public affairs in the U.S. and abroad. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was for many years a contributing editor at THE NEW REPUBLIC, and currently serves on the editorial advisory boards of THE AMERICAN INTEREST.

Professor Loury's books include ONE BY ONE, FROM THE INSIDE OUT: ESSAYS AND REVIEWS ON RACE AND RESPONSIBILITY IN AMERICA — winner of the American Book Award); THE ANATOMY OF RACIAL INEQUALITY (2002); ETHNICITY, SOCIAL MOBILITY AND PUBLIC POLICY: COMPARING THE US AND THE UK (2005) and RACE, INCARCERATION, AND AMERICAN VALUES (2008).

Guest photos by Robin Holland

Published October 31, 2008.