With a lot of enthusiasm and a little trepidation, Gwen and I accepted the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from PBS President Paula Kerger, knowing what a good cause this is.

In turn, we issued a challenge to the NewsHour’s own favorites, regular Friday contributors Mark Shields and David Brooks. (David has accepted — “I’m game!” I’m still searching for Mark!)

In addition, we each picked a favorite charity to challenge. For me, it’s the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and its President, Dr. Gary Goldstein. Kennedy Krieger, affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, is the internationally recognized pediatric neuro-rehabilitation hospital and research center. And Gwen’s pick was Don Blanchon from the Whitman Walker Clinic, an organization that provides health care services for the LGBT community.

Gif by Ariel Min.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but our young NewsHour staffers who took on the responsibility of dumping buckets of ice water on our heads, did it with great relish! And, oh, was it cold!

Watch Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill get soaked in ice water…in slow motion.

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So it was, heading into last weekend.

It was assumed, after a drumbeat of talk about preparations for a military strike on Syria, after a passionate argument by Secretary of State Kerry, and after a careful explanation by President Obama that the use of a certain type of particularly lethal weapon required a response, that he would move to do just that. He told Gwen Ifill and me in an interview at the White House last Wednesday: “… we want the Assad regime to understand that by using chemical weapons on a large scale against your own people — against women, against infants, against children, that you are not only breaking international norms and standards of decency, but you’re also creating a situation where U.S. national interests are affected, and that needs to stop.”

We also knew warships were in place in the Mediterranean. The commanders on those ships believed an order to strike was imminent. One defense department official told CNN: “We were standing multiple watches. Everyone was pretty sure it was going to happen.”

But the president surprised just about everyone, even some of his closest advisers. The New York Times reported that when he summoned them into the Oval Office Friday night to tell them he wanted to seek congressional approval first, “the resistance … was immediate.”

Most of us are now still looking for a full explanation of why he did what he did. We’ve asked questions, understand the setback represented by the British Parliament’s “no” vote, and think perhaps this former constitutional law professor was troubled by the precedent a go-it-alone decision would create. We heard Mr. Obama say “… our democracy is stronger when the president and the people’s representatives stand together.”

But presidents going back more than half a century have taken much more sweeping military moves without first seeking blessings from Capitol Hill. Harry Truman circumvented Congress, calling the Korean War a “police action,” even though more than 35 thousand American men died there. Further, presidents as different as Johnson, Reagan and Clinton declared they did not need an OK from the legislative branch before they launched attacks in Vietnam, Grenada and Kosovo.

Despite overwhelming public opposition to military engagement in Syria, the White House insists that Mr. Obama will get the congressional support he says he wants. Skeptical Democrats are being warned that anything less would weaken him too much politically; Republicans are facing pressure to stand up for a strong American defense. If so, it’s certain there will be repercussions. There’s no way to predict how a vote of approval may affect military-related decisions by future presidents, or even by this one. And there’s even greater uncertainty about the toll that casting this vote will take on upcoming votes on crucial domestic issues like the federal budget and immigration.

No action in Washington, as in physics, occurs in a vacuum. As Newton taught us, there is always a reaction. Having been surprised by what the president announced Saturday, I’m as anxious as everyone else to see what the fallout is — overseas and here at home.

The post Judy’s Notebook: Watching History in the Making appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

When the events at the Boston Marathon unfolded last week, I was about as far away as one could be, and still be in the U.S. Yes, halfway across the Pacific Ocean, in Hawaii.

While the reporter in me hates to miss a big story, I admit I felt a touch of relief, especially on the first day, at not having to pry for details in the gruesome aftermath of the bombings. But even from a distance of over 5,000 miles, I was glued to the news; on television, radio and online. Returning to my hotel room from a dinner Thursday night at around 10 p.m. local time, I watched the frantic police manhunt underway at what was 4 a.m. in Watertown, Mass.

It contributed to a kind of dual identity all week: on the one hand, I couldn’t take my eyes off what was happening in Boston. On the other, I was conscious of how fortunate I was to have been invited to participate in a special gathering of Hawaii’s business, educational and philanthropic leaders, on the beautiful island of Kauai.

Called the Hawaii Executive Conference, it has convened once a year since 1963, making this their 50th anniversary. I spent time with a diverse group of remarkable men and women, all looking for the best ways to confront the nation’s and their own state’s future challenges, especially in the economic and educational realms.

They share many of the same worries familiar to us in Washington, over jobs, government spending and the fate of their children’s and grandchildren’s generations.
One striking difference I saw is the youth of some of their most impressive leaders: co-chairs were the 47-year-old president of the Bank of Hawaii, Peter Ho, and the 42-year-old private equity executive, B.J. Kobayashi.

I listened as they spoke of the need for better schools, a clean environment and greater innovation and risk-taking, to attract new jobs to the Aloha State. They heard a pep talk from AOL founder and entrepreneur Steve Case, a Hawaii native who urged them to look for ways to invest in their own state. Case’s wife, Jean, who has become an expert in interactive technologies and social media, also spoke. The message from the Cases and other internet and investment pioneers was “take risks” and “embrace failure,” advice they said applies to anyone interested in innovating.

The group also heard from Gary Knell, president of our sister news organization, NPR, explaining how news gathering today has to innovate in its own way to survive, given dizzying changes in technology. The era of one or two deadlines a day is gone; they are constant and the public not only expects us to keep up, but also to embrace their growing engagement in what we do. I agreed with his analysis and devoted much of the rest of my remarks to Washington’s gridlock and the country’s current partisan divide.

Still, that dual identity meant that for all of us at the conference, for all the focus on what’s new and how do we keep pace with change, there was an ever-present concern with Boston. Before we understood the magnitude of what had happened, there was a little conversation around whether the news media was making too much of it.

But as the toll of dead and wounded quickly became clear, that shifted to a sense that, once again, that the United States had been the target of something terrible. And unlike other countries where attacks have sadly become commonplace, in the Middle East and parts of Europe and Asia, the U.S. doesn’t treat them with complacency.

Four innocents killed in Boston by ruthless terrorists — strikes just as hard at the heart of Americans living in Hawaii, as it does in Florida, Texas or North Dakota. We Americans mourn every death and every person injured. There is nothing to be “accepted” about what happened in Boston. It’s a measure of our national character, of the value we place on human life, that we celebrate every soul lost, from eight year old Martin Richard, to 23-year-old Lu Lingzi the Chinese graduate student studying at Boston University.

As far away as we were on the remote island of Kauai, in Hawaii, we never doubted we were part of the same community as the people of Boston, horrified at the violence, mourning the loss of life, thinking of how Hawaiians might help by sending aid, and reminded that we share common values of respect for political differences and for human life. The national partisan divide that many deplore, seemed to fade for a day or two. The awful events so far away, reminded us of what binds us together as Americans.

Editor’s note: An original version of this story was incorrectly edited to state that events on April 19 occurred in Watertown, Conn. They happened in Watertown, Mass.

The post Judy’s Notebook: Witnessing the Events in Boston From 5,000 Miles Away appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

There are other spots in rural America where the president didn’t find many fans. In Winston County, Ala., he picked up 13.2 percent of the vote; in Grant County, W.Va., 15.6 percent; and in Franklin County, Utah, just 5.8 percent. Oklahoma, Alabama, West Virginia and Utah, along with 20 other states, all went for Mitt Romney, a couple by better than two-to-one.

If the whole country had been that unenthusiastic about Mr. Obama, he wouldn’t have been re-elected, of course. But because he prevailed in the hard-fought battleground states (you know their names by heart: Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, and so on…) and because he ran up huge totals in highly populated places like Los Angeles County (1,614,188 votes or 69.3 percent), Kings County, N.Y., also known as Brookyln (503,291 votes or 81.4 percent), and in Cook County, Ill., home of Chicago (where vote-counting continues but so far the Obama vote totals upwards of 1,439,123 votes or 74 percent), he was able to pull off an impressive win. Though the final tally is still being tweaked as votes around the country continue coming in, his re-elect margin of 2.5 percent appears to be greater than that of his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

What are we to conclude from these random sets of vote returns?

Something we already knew. The United States is politically divided, in some places bitterly so. Most voters in rural Oklahoma have thoughts about Obamacare that are probably not at all shared by most voters Los Angeles or Baltimore. That’s not inconsequential: Strongly held disagreements over large questions like health care, taxes, defense spending, and the role of government, put strains on the president and his ability to get things done. A leader facing the disapproval of almost half the country will have a harder time exerting his authority and arriving at solutions to big problems.

But the 2012 Election Day exit polls show there is more support for the President and his policies than it appeared just a few months ago. A majority — 54 percent — expressed approval of the way he is handling his job. Fifty-three percent said they have a favorable opinion of him. Fifty-seven percent said they trust him to handle an international crisis. And of the two-thirds of voters who said they “strongly favor” their candidate, 54 percent said their candidate was President Obama.

As for the most urgent problem facing the president — how to deal with tax and spending questions that will determine if the country goes off the “fiscal cliff” — a combined total of 60 percent said they favor either raising income tax rates on everyone (13 percent), or on those earning over $250,000 (47 percent), the approach the president campaigned on.

This suggests that on this fundamental question — one that will be fiercely debated in Washington in the coming weeks, and a piece of the main “unknown” the financial markets are seriously worried about — President Obama has some leverage. That, coupled with the fact he just won re-election with almost 61 million votes.

Republicans, House Republicans in particular, will argue against him, and they will remind us, as they already are, that he won fewer votes than he did in 2008.

My NewsHour colleague Geoffrey Lou Guray calculated there were a total of just under 39 million votes cast for the winning 200-plus GOP House members (as per The Associated Press). In other words, they won around 20 million fewer votes than did the president. My guess is that’s not likely to come up during budget and tax negotiations; it probably wouldn’t be the most effective bargaining tool. Remember when the president reminded Republicans early in his first term that elections have consequences?

Rather than vote tallies, perhaps the most useful advantage he’ll bring to the table is experience. That came through in his speech to a cheering throng on election night, when he suggested there are things he’ll do differently this time around:

“…whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you. I have learned from you. And you’ve made me a better president. With your stories and your struggles, I return to the White House more determined and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do, and the future that lies ahead.”

I interviewed Mark Bertolini, the CEO of Aetna Insurance, about the “fiscal cliff” on the NewsHour Thursday, and when I asked him if the president has a stronger hand in the debate now that he’s been re-elected, he answered: “I think he has a mandate to lead. And if he uses that leadership well, I think he can get this done.”

For the good of the country — for those who voted for Mr. Obama and those who didn’t — let’s hope so.

The post Judy’s Notebook: America Divided but Looking for Leadership appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

I try not to get too carried away on Election Day every four years, because, after all, I have a job to do. But the truth is I’m walking an emotional tightrope all day long. I love covering American politics, I’m fascinated by watching most politicians, and I could talk to voters for hours about what matters to them and how they see the men and women competing for their support. And the presidential campaigns have put so much time, energy and heart into defeating the other one, you can’t ignore the element of drama — it’s a little like watching two locomotives barreling down parallel train tracks, one of them headed to a happy destination, the other off a cliff. No one knows which will end up where; the suspense is overwhelming.

Of course there are huge stakes involved — war and peace, government moves that affect the well-being of millions — but on Election Day what comes into sharpest relief for me are the men and women celebrating or mourning the outcome. I saw this first as a young reporter covering the 1976 campaign when President Gerald Ford was defeated by former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. Assigned on election night to cover the Carter staff at an Atlanta hotel, I’ll never forget the look of shock and sheer joy on a young aide’s face when she realized the candidate she’d devoted the last few years of her life to, had won. Then, at the White House four years later, as by-then President Carter was focused on trying to win the release of U.S. hostages held in the embassy in Iran, I saw the same aide dissolve in tears as she watched him concede to Ronald Reagan.

There would be a similar cycle in 1988 and 1992, as the team surrounding President George H. W. Bush thrilled to his victory over Michael Dukakis, then collapsed in disappointment when Bill Clinton, with a boost from Ross Perot, wiped out Bush’s dreams of a second term.

If there is no greater high than the celebration around a presidential victor, and no more painful low than the disappointment felt by the loser, the 2000 recount was an incredible news story and an emotional roller-coaster. Thirty-eight days of chad-counting and court challenges dimmed some of the glow from George W. Bush’s celebration after the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. But the sting felt by the team around Al Gore was probably no less acute than it would have been with a clean result on election night.

I think what Gore said in his concession speech that December gets at the core of what makes our system of government the best of all the alternatives:

“Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency: ‘Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.’

Well, in that same spirit, I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country.”

That couldn’t have been easy for Gore, but it helped begin the healing process that was so necessary after the draining, bitter post-election period. It set an example for the army of aides and advisers who had worked so hard for Gore’s election, and undoubtedly for his supporters as well. Looking back, it’s an approach that seems especially appealing today, at a time when our political divisions seem more pronounced than ever.

My job on Election Day is in many ways like every other working day — to gather the facts and ask the questions that help viewers and readers understand what is happening. But if the surface looks calm, it’s deceptive. By the end of the evening, underneath, a part of me is an emotional mess: thinking about the happy winners and the heartbroken losers, and marveling that, yet again, the country I love has voted in a new leader — or rejected a challenger — without firing a shot, or shedding a drop of blood. If you look closely, you may see me hiding a lump in my throat, because I feel so lucky to live in the United States of America.

The post Judy’s Notebook: Election Day Not Just About the Numbers appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

President Barack Obama is greeted by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie after he arrives at Atlantic City International Airport before surveying Hurricane Sandy damage on Oct. 31, 2012.

For an example of a last-minute news development that has the potential to change the outcome of an election, we can go back to the fall of 1972, when 12 days before voters were to go to the polls, President Richard Nixon’s National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, declared “peace is at hand,” in negotiations to end the war in Vietnam. The announcement was credited with expanding Nixon’s already significant lead over George McGovern. Nixon coasted to re-election despite the fact that fighting would go on for another 10 months.

Since then, campaigns, especially those of the challenger, have regularly accused their opponent of manufacturing a news event late in the game, to put them in a stronger position. Sometimes these allegations have had the ring of truth; other times the accusations seemed manufactured themselves. There is almost always a dispute about how much they influence the election outcome. In late October of 2000, a Democratic politician from Maine disclosed that Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush had been arrested for drunk driving in that state 24 years earlier. Bush quickly acknowledged it was true and although he lost the popular vote to Al Gore, went on to win the presidency, with a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

This year, the October surprise comes at the hand of Mother Nature: A freakishly powerful storm system that tore through the most populated section of the United States, leaving flooding, power outages and disrupted transportation and work schedules — in addition to dozens of deaths — in its wake. President Barack Obama responded by doubling down on his official duties, stressing his main priority is the safety of anyone in harm’s way. Mitt Romney’s campaign, without an official portfolio, hastily organized a “donate to storm victims” opportunity, in the battleground state of Ohio.

Romney returns to the campaign trail full-time on Wednesday in Florida, as President Obama spends part of the day touring storm damage with New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie. By the end of the week, with just a handful of days left until Election Day, both will be back in full-throated political combat. But some voters, having been given a reprieve from campaign coverage for a few days — a rare moment of agreement from the two sides on what the primary focus should be — may slightly adjust their thinking.

Just seeing the pictures of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy — the flattened seaside houses, flooded streets and subways of New York and New Jersey, darkened blocks that are normally lit up at night, cars and boats tossed around, and tearful homeowners, coupled with the death toll and the rising financial cost (now at $50 billion), reminds everyone of what’s important at a time like this. As New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told residents of the town of Sayreville this morning, “We can argue about other stuff, but there’s no arguing about this.”

So while voters weigh the two presidential candidates, their records and what they offer for the next four years, it’s a good idea to watch them closely as they respond to the unexpected. Do they have the right priorities? Are their values in the right place? Are they connecting with people who are in need and listening to them? What are they saying about what they’re seeing and hearing? Do they seem genuine? And is there consistency between how they’re responding to this and what they’ve said and done in the past when confronted with a similar issue?

It’s one last chance to get a peek at the character and core of these men who want the most powerful job in the world. We get so few opportunities to see them without choreography: How are they measuring up? It’s a question worth pondering as we head to the polls.

The post Judy’s Notebook: An October Surprise May Help Put the Election in Focus appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Now that both campaigns are focusing more openly on women voters, my question is: what took them so long? It was in 1920 – long after the founding of our country – that women were first permitted to vote in the U.S. But just 60 years later, in 1980, their turnout exceeded that of men. Now, we take it for granted that more women will vote than men, and we scratch our heads trying to understand why they often vote differently. The “gender gap” has become a fact of modern American politics, as we try to figure out why it waxes and wanes from one election to the next.

It first appeared in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and over time, as analysis has grown more sophisticated, it’s increasingly calculated by marital status and age, income level and education. To boil down the differences: Women – especially unmarried women – tend to be more for government playing a supportive role in society, and more against military engagement abroad. Until a few days ago, President Obama had an unquestioned lead among women, especially those not married. The challenge experts were posing for Gov. Romney was that he couldn’t let his share of the female vote drop TOO far below that of the president’s, because there’d be no way to make up the difference with men.

But since the first presidential debate on October 3, tectonic plates have shifted. A poll by the respected Pew Research Center showed Romney had gone from being 18 points behind among women last month, to even with President Obama at the time the new poll was conducted. Other surveys also show movement among women in Romney’s direction, but not as large. In any case, it’s enough of a signal that the Romney campaign is moving quickly to take advantage of the second hearing their candidate is being given by women – pointing out he does not oppose abortion in cases of rape or incest or if the life of the mother is at stake (separating him from the personal view of his running mate, Paul Ryan), and noting that he favors making contraceptives available under most circumstances – notwithstanding his previous support for the right of employers who wanted to deny providing such coverage.

At this week’s debate, the two candidates weren’t asked about abortion, as their vice presidential running mates were a week earlier, but there’s a clear difference: Romney has said he favors overturning the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal. Meanwhile, they did argue over whose policies as president would be better for women. President Obama spoke of his support for equal pay and workplace treatment for women, as well as for a woman’s reproductive rights. Romney became the subject of much post-debate discussion over his remark about being given “binders full of women” as he looked to fill out state jobs after being elected governor of Massachusetts. But his main pitch was the economy, pledging to create jobs as president that would benefit women, who he said have been hit especially hard by the recession and its aftermath.

As American women think about whether to vote, and whom to vote for, that economic argument is a powerful one. Do they believe Gov. Romney can create jobs that President Obama cannot; or do they believe the president has had the right prescription, but has been stymied by Republicans in Congress? And do they believe Romney would carry out policies that could lead to more restrictions on reproductive rights; or do they think that matters less than the need for different economic leadership? Both campaigns desperately want these questions to come out in their favor. This election could very well come down to how women answer them.

The post Judy’s Notebook: Women Wanted appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Whether or not one candidate or the other scores a “knockout punch” or memorable zinger, or if President Obama commits a gaffe or Governor Romney misspeaks, Wednesday night’s debate between the major party candidates counts. It counts a lot.

After all the months of campaigning, the “Rocky Mountain Showdown” will be the first time voters have a chance to see these men together on the same stage, addressing each other and answering questions from moderator Jim Lehrer aimed at drawing them out on some of the most important issues of our time. Based on what Lehrer and the Commission on Presidential Debates have announced, I’m betting both President Obama and Gov. Romney will have a chance to lay out their ideas about at least a half dozen big questions:

• how to encourage hiring;
• how to grow educational opportunities;
• how to make retirement more secure;
• how to create a fairer tax system;
• how to improve and lower the cost of health care;
• and how to get the federal debt under control.

It also appears they’ll be asked to discuss what the role of government should be in American life – a question at the core of much of the political division in America these days. Whatever they choose to say, it’s a sure thing we’ll learn from their answers.

If they decide to give the same responses they’ve given throughout the campaign, that will tell us one thing – but if they decide to expand, go into more detail, or highlight points we haven’t heard before, that will send a different message. For 90 minutes, they’re on their own — no filter and no safety net.

We will be able to judge the content of their answers, and the way they comport themselves. Do they show respect toward each other? Is there a flash of self-deprecating humor? We’re already familiar, in many ways, with Mr. Obama; but for all the hours he’s been before a television camera as president, we haven’t seen him in an open-ended setting with the man who wants to take his job away from him. The same with Governor Romney: for all the time some of us spent watching him in 19 (!) Republican primary debates last year and this, he hasn’t faced off against the president yet.

I don’t know how entertaining most folks will find this program that begins at 9 PM Eastern Wednesday night – I see that the movie “Supernatural” is to air at the same time on the CW channel. But I do know there’s not a more valuable way for you to spend an hour and a half. Whether or not it changes the dynamic of the race in any way, I expect to be riveted.

The post Judy’s Notebook: It Matters appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Other than their age and their massive numbers, what’s different about what voters under 30 are looking for in this election? After spending a weekend in and around Columbus, Ohio, I was reminded again that although this group of voters has its own set of priorities, young people can often be swayed by the same arguments as older voters.

The economy, as with the rest of the electorate, is issue number one, and in some cases, even more urgent. The youngest members of this cohort came of age watching their parents and other relatives get laid off their jobs, lose a house or a big chunk of their retirement savings. The cost of education and the scarcity of employment opportunities have made many twenty-somethings jaundiced before their time. Some, like Austin Niece, who graduated this year, blame President Obama: “I don’t like the government spending a lot of our money.” Others, like Jason Good, an athletic trainer at Ohio State University, told me: “Obama inherited an economic mess….you can’t change everything in four years.” He was still deciding whom to support.

But OSU law student Katie Wall Rabenstein, headed for a career as a criminal defense attorney, said her chief concern has to do with social issues, including gay rights: “How someone cares about people who are different says a lot about their character.” Rabenstein, of Milan, Ohio, is voting for the president, yet predicted he will not win by the overwhelming margin he did in 2008 because of the challenges he’s faced since.

Pollsters unanimously agree there will be slippage in President Obama’s performance from four years ago, if only because the appeal to “be a part of history” has faded. But Peter Levine, who heads the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, at Tufts University, says the president is helped by Mitt Romney’s positions on two policy sets, starting with social issues like abortion, contraception and gay rights. These are largely “damaging and distracting” for Romney, he says, with young people who have distinctly more liberal views than he does.

One other area where many of them part company with Romney is on national security. Levine describes the younger generation as big believers in a “collaborative” foreign policy, a view that international crises are best solved by working with the United Nations and other partners, rather than going it alone. John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, says if Romney wants to appeal to younger voters, he will stay away from foreign policy issues. A recent Pew poll backed him up. When asked about each candidate’s response to the recent violence in Libya that led to the death of U.S. ambassador Chris Stephens, only 15 percent of young voters said they preferred Romney’s comments, while 54 percent preferred the president’s. A majority of older voters also sided with Mr. Obama, but not by such a lopsided margin.

Having said all this, the president still needs to get his young supporters to the polls. The enthusiasm of 2008 has mostly disappeared; in its place is a more realistic view of the political process that will lead many voters under 30 to skip voting altogether. Both candidates are doing what they can to reach the remainder – young people who understand they have something at stake in the outcome. But it won’t be possible without OSU undergraduates like Miranda Onnen, volunteering for Romney because she believes in his low-tax policy, and Mary McKay, working for Obama because he will “support education for children from working class families.” They will both be going door-to-door, and dorm-to-dorm, between now and Election Day.

The post Judy’s Notebook: The Youngest One-Fourth of Us appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a packed audience that a “political crisis – caused by Washington paralysis – is standing in the way of a full recovery.” Charging that both parties “have let us down,” he said they “have focused on generating headlines in the media, rather than generating headcount in the workplace.” Further, he said both Republicans and Democrats “have tried to divide America into small single-issue constituencies – pitting one against the other – rather than getting us to work together for all citizens.”

Addressing the Economic Club of Washington, Mayor Bloomberg split the nation’s economic challenges into short and longer-term. In the near-term, he said Washington must deal with “the uncertainty that is paralyzing businesses and hindering investment in both plant and people.” To do that, he called on leaders to “adopt a credible plan to deal with our deficit, along the lines of Simpson-Bowles.” Getting specific, he recommended Democrats (who he said “hold all the cards”) embrace ending ALL the Bush-era tax cuts when they expire at the end of the year, in return for spending cuts and broad tax reform. Second, he said Washington must speed up implementing new health care and financial regulations.

In the longer term, the Big Apple chief executive cited a structural economic crisis that “is much more dangerous to our future,” and which is “largely being ignored in Washington.” He described “the squeezing of the American middle class” as a problem that began well before the Great Recession, but which is now the most urgent priority for the United States. Using his own experiences in New York City as inspiration, Mayor Bloomberg advocated four specific steps: clearing the way for business growth (and he stressed this doesn’t mean lower taxes, which he characterized as a low priority for entrepreneurs); creating the necessary infrastructure – like state-of-the-art seaports and high speed rail; opening new markets for investment; and reforming education to produce a high-skilled labor force.

Ticking off example after example of how this formula has worked for his city, the mayor connected it to the re-generation of more than 200 percent of the jobs New York lost in the financial collapse, compared to the 40 percent gained back across the entire country. He was careful to ascribe responsibility to both political parties. But he ended his speech by quoting former President Clinton at the Democratic convention in Charlotte last week: “The old economy is not coming back and we’ve got to build a new one – and educate people to do those jobs,” and saying it’s up “to the next president – whoever it is – to take up that challenge….”

It will be interesting to see whether President Obama or Gov. Romney address any of these issues between now and Nov. 6.

Full disclosure: I anchor a monthly interview program for Bloomberg Television.

Follow @JudyWoodruff

The post Judy’s Notebook: Amid the Noise, A Voice From the Center appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Conventions!

I confess I love them. And I’m fascinated by the political people who go to them. Ever since I sneaked – without credentials – into the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach in 1972, as a reporter for the CBS TV affiliate in Atlanta, I have been hooked on these quadrennial political festivals. Despite the fact that the gatherings in Tampa and Charlotte over the next two weeks won’t feature “takeovers” by political activists (we don’t expect) or run on into the wee hours of the morning, as did that wild confab that nominated George McGovern, they will be exciting. More important, they’ll be worth paying attention to.

No, they don’t hold the sort of suspense that conventions used to hold – as at the 1980 Republican Convention in Detroit when presidential nominee Ronald Reagan seriously considered naming former President Gerald Ford as his vice presidential running mate. Or the Democratic Convention that same year in New York City, when Senator Ted Kennedy, who was trying to unseat the President in his own party, Jimmy Carter, worked to release delegates from their voting commitments. Kennedy ended up with more than a third of the vote and helped weaken Carter for the fall campaign, which he lost to Reagan.

But conventions are a coming-together of almost all the movers and shakers in each political party, with delegates from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, plus territories and protectorates like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. And they offer a chance for each party – or more accurately, the nominee of each party – to spell out where he wants to take the country over the next four years, and what he proposes to do to get us there. Today’s conventions are far more scripted and orchestrated, right down to the second, with high production values more like several nights worth of Academy Awards than a political or policy debate.

But if you listen closely to the speeches and look carefully at the images on the screens – the Republicans are boasting 13 huge LED screens “with a high pixel count” – you should come away with a better idea of what’s important to that party’s nominee. If you don’t, if you don’t hear the detail you seek in how either one would spur job creation, or address the housing crisis, or improve the United States’ international standing in education, or deal with the growing violence against American troops in Afghanistan, then you have a right to complain. The parties and their presidential campaigns have had months to prepare for these conventions, and they should – at the very least – provide answers to the questions of ordinary citizens.

By listening to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie give the Republican keynote address in Tampa, or San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro for the Democrats in Charlotte – the first Latino to deliver their keynote – you should have a better understanding of what Mitt Romney and President Obama stand for, and why they deserve your support or not. The same goes for the Wednesday night DNC speech of former President Bill Clinton, who will place President Obama’s name into nomination. Or another Arkansan, former Governor Mike Huckabee, who speaks at the RNC next Monday. They’ll all come with a message, signed off on by their party’s nominee. When it’s all over, we should have a better idea of what they stand for and how prepared they are to face the unknowns that lie ahead. Otherwise, you do have a right to complain, and to keep asking questions until they answer them.

Join Gwen Ifill and me, and the entire PBS NewsHour team, over the next two weeks – we promise to do our best to make it all as fun and meaningful to you as it is to us.

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I’m often tempted in covering political campaigns to agree with voters who say they are fed up with negative advertising and the constant criticisms that candidates level at one another. Living in Washington, D.C., I’ve been treated lately to some of the TV spots aimed at persuadable voters in next door Northern Virginia. They remind me of what voters who live in the most hotly contested battleground states – like Florida and Ohio – live with practically every election year.

There’s no question that negative campaigning seems over the top these days and that the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case enabled an even greater torrent of charges and counter-charges to fly through the airwaves, paid for by so-called super PACs, outside groups supporting the candidates. I’ve done my share of deploring the ugly tone many of these ads take.

What’s just as disconcerting is the sort of analysis done recently by Democratic strategist Paul Begala, who calculated that the roughly $2 billion that will be spent this year by the Obama and Romney campaigns and their outside supporters, is aimed at just 1/320th of the U.S. population – the 916,643 people he calculated who make up the undecided vote in six critical swing states: Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado. (Begala guessed that Obama and Romney could count on 48 percent of the vote in these states, leaving just 4 percent of the electorate truly “persuadable.”) In a clever conclusion, he suggests the candidates consider sending each undecided voter his or her share of the loot spent on ads – which would come out to $2,181.87 – money he believes the voters would prefer instead.

Begala may be on to something. But in the meantime, since the campaigns believe it’s worth $2 billion or more to try to influence us, since they believe there’s that much and a lot more at stake in the election, I humbly suggest it’s worth our time to listen. Rather than turning off the TV, all of those who have time to watch the ads – decided and undecided voters – may want to pay careful attention to these spots, and hold them up to scrutiny. Ask yourself questions after you see a critical ad on television, or hear one on the radio: What exactly is the opponent alleging, if it’s a negative spot? Does it have any ring of truth? What’s the candidate’s motive in airing this ad? Why did his campaign pay to air it at this time, next to this program? Whom is he trying to reach? What is he trying to get us to think about the other candidate?

Most of us don’t have time to fact-check a spot, but if possible, it’s smart to keep an eye out for fact-checking done by news reporters we trust. If it turns out the ad is misleading or an exaggeration in any way, what does that make us think about the candidate who ran it?

All of us know there are huge stakes in every election, arguably more in this one than usual, because of the fundamentally different philosophies the candidates have about the role of government. Tax and spending policies, Supreme Court and other federal judiciary appointments, the decision to wage war, to name a few. Elections matter. For those of us who have the time, (clearly, many of us are too busy with jobs or family), dissecting the charges candidates fling at each other is an exercise well worth engaging in. At least for the first 25 times the spot airs. After that, you get a reprieve.

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America’s well-known political divisions were thrown into even sharper relief this week with some election results in the heartland. At least seven moderate Republican state senators in Kansas, who had temporarily allied themselves with Democrats in opposing cuts in income taxes and laws to lessen the political influence of labor unions, were defeated by more conservative Republicans in Tuesday’s primary contest. The outcome gives conservatives the overwhelming majority in the Kansas state Senate on top of their existing control of the Statehouse, clearing the way for Republican Gov. Sam Brownback to enact an agenda that includes tax cuts for individuals and businesses, as well as efforts to prevent the Obama health care reform law from taking effect in Kansas.

Voters like Alex Yoho, a 56-year-old optician from Topeka, were quoted by the Associated Press, saying of state government, “You can’t get too conservative for me.” And 68-year-old consultant Rich Whalen of Overland Park said, “We are getting so liberal that we are just handing everybody anything.” Another voter, retired elementary school teacher Andrea McGee, told the AP, “There are certain things you can compromise, but health care, abortion, pro-life, things like that, I want to make sure that those things are covered.”

The sentiments expressed in Kansas call to mind the victory last May in another heartland state — Indiana — of Richard Mourdock for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate. Mourdock defeated six-term GOP incumbent Richard Lugar in large part by arguing he had “gone along” with Democrats too often. He proclaimed that if he wins the general election in November – and he is now favored – he doesn’t view compromise as part of the job. Mourdock told CNN in May: “I hope to build a conservative majority in the U.S. Senate so bipartisanship becomes Democrats joining Republicans to roll back the size of government.”

Meanwhile, as I’ve interviewed voters in the battleground states of Florida and Virginia recently, I’ve been hearing something different. Many say they want both parties to give a little in order to find common ground.

Mary McLean of Chantilly, Virginia was unsparing in her criticism of members of Congress who won’t work with the other party: “I think my three-year-old has better negotiation and interpersonal skills and acts more mature when he doesn’t get his way, which is not a ringing endorsement.”

Republican Debbie Meighan of Leesburg, Virginia said she thinks sometimes gridlock is healthy, but “the partisanship, name calling and just almost just ugliness of it is really, really unbecoming. And it turns a lot of people off.”

In Fort Myers, Florida, voter Tom Garner put it this way: “I wish somebody like Speaker Boehner would get together with Obama and just those two would work out deals like when Tip O’Neill was speaker. Get together and work out some deals and then go back and say, ‘This is how we’re going to do it.'”

So, which will it be? Will lawmakers elected this November believe their marching orders are to stick to their guns, or to work with the other party to hammer out compromise somewhere in the middle? I’ll be asking many more voters that question between now and election day. I’d love to know what you think: Which do you want from Washington in the months and years ahead? Send your thoughts to me on Twitter: @JudyWoodruff

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For all the attention Sen. McCain has won over the years, first for his bravery as a Vietnam POW, later for his maverick Republican ways, and most recently for his controversial pick of Sarah Palin to be his 2008 vice presidential running mate, it’s been his espousal of campaign finance reform that has the potential to transform American politics.

So far, the emphasis has to be on “potential,” because most of the effects of the McCain-Feingold reform law, passed in 2002, have been undermined by congressional naysayers and an activist Supreme Court majority, powerful forces bent on maximizing the ability of individuals and corporations to spend as much money as they wish to effect change in Washington. Today, money may be the single most distinctive and influential agent in our political system. It doesn’t always determine the outcome, but it forces the players to take positions that shape future votes they cast.

Money also keeps lawmakers who aren’t independently wealthy “in their place,” reminding them that their political survival depends less on studying legislation or talking to constituents than it does on pleasing deep-pocketed donors with specific wish lists.

The free speech argument, made this week by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – and by five justices of the Supreme Court in their 2010 Citizens United ruling – is that Americans should be allowed to spend as much as they want to advance their beliefs, and in the spirit of the First Amendment, that “money equals speech.” They argue that curbing spending in pursuit of a political end is as unconstitutional as limiting the right to free speech.

McCain told me in our interview that he wishes just one of the justices who voted against the law that bears his name had “run for county sheriff.” He called them naïve about the way American politics works, unappreciative of the corrupting influence that money has on elections. And he caught my attention further by questioning whether the giant checks written by Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson skirt the edges of the law. Because Adelson owns casinos in the Chinese colony of Macau, McCain asked if his contributions actually include foreign money – which, if true, would be against the law.

In later interviews on the subject, McCain chose to downplay this comment, suggesting there is plenty else to focus on, but he had again demonstrated his willingness to challenge Republican party orthodoxy on this topic.

Finally, in noting the distorting effects money can have, not just in the presidential campaign but in low-profile House and Senate races where an unknown and unqualified candidate with enough money can vault into first place, the senator singled out a little-noticed but consequential effect of the new interpretations of the finance laws. McCain may not have won the White House, but he is trying to hold his place – some would say his legacy – in shaping this crucial feature of American public life.

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Perhaps the most over-quoted figure in American politics is not Huey Long, but the ancient Chinese philosopher/general Sun Tzu. Whether he ever existed or not, it’s too tempting to cite one of his bite-sized observations, as they all seem to fit the current electoral scene. I’d argue that the quote above, about winning before going to war, fits the move by the GOP in Florida and other states to purge the rolls of ineligible voters.

Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed a law this year passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature that’s aimed at curtailing voter fraud. It eliminates Sunday voting, imposes new record-keeping requirements on voter registration organizations, and a 48-hour deadline to turn forms into the state.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice demanded Florida stop the voter-roll purge, saying it violated the federal Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act, and that it was reliant on faulty Department of Motor Vehicle records to determine who is eligible to vote.

The Scott administration responded with a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder saying it would continue the purge, and is now demanding federal records as a part of that push.

If this seems like an arcane struggle over a set of obscure laws, that’s deceptive. It’s actually a critical piece of Republican strategy to, in the words of Sun Tzu, “win first, and then go to war.” Recalling the 2000 cliffhanger when many minority voters argued they were prevented from casting ballots, and President Obama’s 2008 victory in this perennially critical battleground state, by a margin of less than 3 percent, the GOP is looking to gain every advantage it can. Democrats are naturally pushing back.

Florida’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio chimed in Wednesday at a breakfast meeting with reporters in Washington. He told us that Scott is not trying “to go after any particular profile of voter,” and insisted the goal of the entire effort is “to protect the integrity of the voting process.” Asked how many legal voters he was willing to tolerate being “kicked off” the voting rolls accidentally, in the course of cleaning up the lists, he said that’s not a valid choice – but that no illegal voters should be allowed to cast ballots.

When one reporter pointed out there is very little evidence of voter fraud that would warrant such a sweeping set of changes, Rubio – who is considered a top prospect to be Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate – grew animated. “How could anyone argue against a state identifying people who are not rightfully on the voter rolls and removing them from the voter rolls? They shouldn’t be voting,” he said.

Progressive groups like the Brennan Center for Justice, based at New York University, have been pleading for what they say is a more rational approach: “Policy makers should make voter registration more accurate and more accessible by modernizing the system, not by repeating the kind of discredited and problematic purge programs that have taken place in the past.”

Meanwhile, conservative activists are targeting the Justice Department lawyer working on the Florida voter-roll case, charging she worked on voter issues with the NAACP.

Win the war before you go to battle: challenge voters who may not be eligible to vote. So far, Florida officials have found around 100 people who are suspect. Consider that in 2008, more than 8.4 million voters turned out. And in 2000, just a couple of hundred ballots made the difference when the Supreme Court made the ultimate call.

It’s a cliché but true: in a close election, as this one is expected to be, every single vote counts.

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