Six Days Out October 29, 2008

 
I’ve been doing some work over the past few days in preparation for our election night coverage and, as a result, have had a number of discussions with political operatives around the region.
Today, in particular, I’ve noticed real uneasiness among some Democrats who support Barack Obama—not at all unlike the nervousness apparently being felt in [...]

Advance Thanks October 24, 2008

I was sincerely surprised this morning when my colleagues here at WBAL-TV used part of our morning meeting to mark my 25th anniversary with the station. My total tenure here is actually a little longer–I arrived in 1979; left to work for the network in early 1982 and returned in October of 1983. My 25 [...]

What Early Voting is Telling Us October 21, 2008

 Have you seen the pictures out of Florida? People lined up and waiting for hours to vote—now—a full two weeks in advance of Election Day.
And in Georgia, so-called early voting has already drawn more than half a million voters.
 
I asked someone who’s long been involved with politics what he took from this. He answered, [...]

Humor: In Short Supply October 17, 2008

 
 
If you didn’t catch the two presidential candidates speaking at the Alfred E. Smith dinner last night in New York, you really missed something. As is the tradition of the dinner, the speeches were laced with funny one-liners. And, while each candidate’s style was different, both delivered flawlessly. In the process, each was able to [...]

A Very Deep Hole October 15, 2008

 
 The headline out of this week’s New York Times/CBS News poll is the apparent widening of Barack Obama’s lead over John McCain—a 14% margin. Historically, such leads tend to tighten up as election day approaches—we’ll see what happens over the next few weeks.
 
Getting less attention is a finding in the poll about the public’s confidence [...]

Can It Get Any Uglier? October 8, 2008

 
I watched most of the debate Tuesday night on CNN, where that “people meter”  runs on the bottom of the screen tracking voters’ reactions. In this case, the people with their finger on the button were so-called undecided voters in Ohio. I noticed how the electronic lines seemed to take a dive when one candidate [...]

Even in the Middle of the Pacific October 3, 2008

 
So I just returned from a long-planned trip to Hawaii—a very long way from home but not at all from some of our viewers. My first  morning on the Big Island, I stop by the front desk of the place where I’m staying only to hear someone say—hey, aren’t you on Channel 11? Turns out [...]