FRONTLINE http://www.pbs.org/frontline/
This Week: "The Choice 2008" (120 minutes),
October 14th at 9pm on PBS (Check local listings)
Just a few weeks before the presidential election, with the economy in historic freefall, Americans are taking a last hard look at the men who would be president, and they are asking some tough questions: Who can be trusted to lead the country through the current gloom? Which candidate--the "Maverick" or the man who insists, "Yes we can" --might actually deliver on the promise of real change in Washington?
For months, veteran FRONTLINE producer/director Michael Kirk has talked to the people closest to Barack Obama and John McCain, and gone deep inside their extended primary campaigns for the nomination. And he has come back with some provocative answers to the questions that we will all soon need to answer. The result is this season's premier, The Choice 2008, which airs Tuesday night.
"This primary, more than any in recent memory, severely tested the candidates," says Kirk. "Watching how Obama and McCain won reveals much about the men, their ideas, the kind of organizations they have built, and the way they face adversity."
How exactly did Barack Obama and John McCain arrive at this moment on the national stage -- merely promising change or delivering it? Defying party orthodoxy or pandering to it? And what does that say about how they will lead the country through continued tough times at home and abroad? We hope you'll watch a preview online ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/ ), then tune in Tuesday for the full program.
Also online: Check out a preview of HEAT, our upcoming global investigation into the response of business and government to climate change. And from our Flashback files, watch video from an old FRONTLINE report that is painfully familiar today: Ten years ago the DOW dramatically plunged as a financial panic roared through the global economy and a massive bailout followed. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/story/2008/10/flashback.html
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