Biljana Lajmanovska reports for Channell 77 Radio in Macedonia. She'll be covering the election from Concord, New Hampshire.

I didn't know a lot about the American elections, and I knew less about Concord, New Hampshire when I got assigned to this program. Internet and Google help a lot these days, but whenever you are in a new country, a first-time visitor, there is nothing to prepare you for the “real deal”.

So I was surprised. The country's autumn beauty is something that you can't truly see on photos. You simply have to see it with your own eyes.

And this autumn is especially exciting in Concord. Maybe because I'm a journalist, I sense the election excitement in the air, especially getting into the last week before the elections. But it was nothing like in my home country, Macedonia.

A week before the elections, on every corner in Macedonia you could see the smiling faces of the candidates – posters, billboards, flyers... A lot of paper is used during the election time and it usually remains on the streets days and months after the elections.

In Concord, there are no billboards and posters. You can see some signs in people's yards, supporting one candidate or another. In fact in USA in general, as I learned, most of the campaigning is on another, electronic level – radio and TV ads, and especially the Internet.

Still, going to the radio station today, I saw some people on the crossroads, standing with signs - vigorous supporters that did not mind the cold morning and accepted to stand on the corners of the streets, just to motivate their fellow citizens to go out and vote for one of the two major candidates. The people driving buy should blow their horns if they like the candidate.
Similar like in the latest polls in this country, there were more signs for McCain, but more horns for Obama.

Charles Odongtho is a radio and newspaper journalist from Uganda. He hosts a political talk show with Vision Voice, the largest media house in Uganda. He is covering the US election from Philadelphia City, Pennsylvania.

I call it dire because I think the media has failed to ask the candidates the real question of their programs. My thinking is that both the democratic frontrunner Barack Obama and the republican John McCain have been allowed to get away with many issues that they should have told the American people.

Americans will never know how to ask the eventual winner how they are addressing issues that they campaigned for and how they set out to do those things in real terms.

True I know that the main issue in the 2008 campaign is the economy. America and the whole world is currently faced with the money crunch, loss of jobs, the banks are going burst and all that. But when Obama says I will help re-fix the economy and take back America to its position of a global economic giant, do we ask how he will do it! What about when McCain says he is stronger on foreign affairs issues? Do we ask him the nitty gritty of how he will help America regain its glory globally from the current state where it is perceived by many countries as a war monger?

These are to me questions that as the media we should be asking on behalf of the public we serve.

But alas, the media in the US here have been awash on a daily basis rushing to endorse this candidate or that candidate. I can tell you that as things stand currently, up to no less than 194 newspapers in the US have endorsed Obama's candidature and 82 McCain.

But how does endorsing a candidate help the ordinary American voter and the global publics who are the people who will be affected most by an American president's policy?

Have we not really failed the publics that we serve by rushing to satisfy our own interests or was this kind of coverage really the kind expected of us?

Aren't we the ones who always claim we are supposed to set the agenda and then we turn out to only set an agenda to discuss how many lipsticks, beautiful knee boots, skirts and flowery jackets that Sarah Palin is wearing?

If in the next two years the winner of next Tuesday's election has not done anything concrete to address the current US problems who should the public blame for not telling the world how it needed to be done?

Will it be us the media or the president or should the publics think outside the box and just stop at our doors to lay the blame?

I think the media here have let down the American people and have not helped them to ask the candidates the real questions of HOW.

Shekhar Presanna Rajan Pillai is the editor at large for India Today, a news magazine in New Delhi.

Where are you? Ask yourself that question from anywhere in this city and the likely answer will have little to do with geography but a lot with history, which, by the way, continues to be the most favored word here at the moment. You could be a couple of blocks away from Foggy Bottom, on the fourth floor office of a news magazine on Thomas Jefferson Street in Georgetown—but that's hardly an answer. You could be on the eighth floor room of a hotel on Connecticut Avenue—but that too is an irrelevant piece of information. You could be across 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, surviving Japanese tourists and other sightseers, and gazing at the most coveted (and powerful) building in the world---but so what?

Washington is almost there: early next week, it will be the capital city of history. Well, that's what the consensus of pollsters, pundits, and the average Joes (not necessarily plumbers). Only die-hard Conservatives would deny such a privilege to the city that also happens to be the capital of the United States of America. Quite a few sophisticates on the right—caviar Conservatives as against hamburger Conservatives?—have already abandoned the ship, apparently disgusted by Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, her $150,000 makeover couldn't stop the desertion.

So next week, they tell us, an African-American will be elected the 44th president of the United States. Isn't the very thought itself historic? The story of Barack Obama is a story of many transformations. And in Washington over the last one week, I have been hearing only the many variations of that story. A man becomes a movement. A black American overcomes the racial divide, and unites the party after a polarizing primary. In the post-Kennedy America, he is the next big explosion in charisma after Reagan and Clinton.

I ask Terry Atlas, assistant Managing Editor of US News & World Report and a longtime observer of politics from the vantage point of a Washington newsroom, over lunch how Obama has overcome the race factor in a society that is essentially conservative. He tells me it is the “ Tiger Woods and the Will Smith moment in American politics.” One a sensational golfer; the other a true Hollywood star; and America is not bothered about the color of their skin.

In Obama's case, the humbled capitalism played an influential part in making this race entirely his. So, the old Clintonian line is back to make Obamania a salvation rite in the depressed marketplace: It's the economy, stupid! And one day, John McCain, the eternal soldier, may reflect on the lost battle: It's that woman, so stupid of me! Well, there too, we can't miss the Clinton echo.

Between now and November 4, only another war can save McCain the soldier. Or so whispers the battleground.

Natasha del Toro is an independent filmmaker and reporter based in Tampa, Florida.
For decades, Florida's anti-Castro Cuban community has been a Republican stronghold. But a diverse and fast-growing group of non-Cuban Hispanic voters could shift the balance the other way. FRONTLINE/World's Natasha del Toro sends this dispatch from Florida.

For decades, the anti-Castro Cuban community in South Florida has been a Republican stronghold, tilting the battleground of Florida and its crucial 27 electoral votes into the GOP camp. But a diverse and fast growing group of non-Cuban Hispanic voters -- who now outnumber Cubans -- could shift the state's balance the other way.

Many pollsters consider this group to be the key to November's election. Hispanics from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Puerto Rico are moving into the area in droves along the State's I-4 corridor. This 132-mile highway cuts straight across Central Florida, connecting Tampa east to Daytona Beach. These immigrants lean Democrat but tend to be independent-minded about voting, a trait seen in previous elections.

"The I-4 corridor has really been the battleground for previous elections," said Republican Party strategist Angulated Aviles. "And seeing there is such an influx of Hispanics coming into the area, it's going to boil down to Hispanics in the I-4 corridor."

In 2000, Florida Latinos in Central Florida voted for Democratic Presidential nominee Al Gore. However, in the 2004 presidential contest, more than half cast their ballot for George Bush. Two years later, they delivered the vote to President Bush's brother Jeb in the Florida governor's race.

Whether it's because these voters are still learning the ropes of the U.S. political system or because they live within a Hispanic Republican culture, where most Hispanic elected officials in the region are Republican, their voter registration and behavior suggest many of them are still up for grabs, said Aviles.
Political talk show host Fernando Negron says the growing dissatisfaction among Central Florida Latinos with the country's direction and the economy will take more than a few words in "espanol" to win their vote.

"The Republicans did a heck of a job to convince us they were the right candidates in the previous election," said Fernando Negron, a political radio talk show host based in Orlando. Both Bush brothers spoke Spanish on the campaign trail and ran a flurry of Spanish language TV and radio ads.

"They bought the Hispanic vote with language," he said. But Negron, a registered independent, says the growing dissatisfaction among Central Florida Latinos with the country's direction and the economy will take more than a few words in "espanol" to win their vote. "We need some change in this country," says Negron. "People that pay $4 a gallon for gas, people that go to the supermarket, people that pay for a house, a mortgage. It has gone badly to the wrong side of the economic swing."

Negron's attitude reflects a recent Pew Hispanic Research Center nationwide survey, which shows Latinos favoring Democrat Barack Obama for president over Republican John McCain by 66 percent to 23 percent, with pocketbook issues as their top concern.

But in the complicated state of Florida, where Latinos make up around 12 percent of the electorate, recent polls show the margin is much more evenly split, giving McCain a slight lead among Hispanics. A Mason-Dixon poll released in early October showed McCain beating Obama 49 to 44 percent. A Zogby poll released last week shows the candidates in a dead heat.

Fernando Negron is a political radio talk show host based in Orlando.

A massive voter registration drive by the campaigns and nonpartisan groups may help the Democrats, who now have 68,000 more registered voters than Republicans, for the first time ever in Florida. In three of the highest Latino populated counties in Central Florida -- Hillsborough, Orange and Osceola -- Hispanic Democrats outnumber registered Hispanic Republicans by more than 2 to 1. And these three counties account for almost 19 percent of the state's overall Latino vote.

Meanwhile, Florida's Division of Elections reports another third of Florida's Hispanic voters are not registered with any major party. According to Thomas Eldon, who recently conducted a poll for The Miami Herald and The St. Petersburg Times, as much as seven percent of the overall Hispanic vote is undecided.

Dave Beattie, another pollster, puts the number of Hispanic undecided voters as high as 14 percent. The number is constantly in flux, which is one reason the campaigns are paying such close attention and trying to understand this demographic as the election nears.

While liberal on economic and fiscal policies, many of the area's Hispanics are more conservative when it comes their family and religious values, which is another issue at play in iwho they will vote for come November 4.

Damaris Soto, a Tampa-based real estate professional from the Dominican Republic, has voted Democrat in the past, but not this year. Even though Obama attends a Christian church, Soto has concerns about Obama's religious upbringing.

"He grew up Indonesian. He grew up in the Musulman countries and in this philosophy," she said. "That is the way that his mother brought him up. And he's very liberal." Soto says she is also concerned about Obama's level of experience. Still, she isn't sure that she will vote for McCain either. "I will decide in November," she said.
Damaris Soto

Damaris Soto is a Tampa-based real estate professional from the Dominican Republic.

Undecided voters like Soto have caused both campaigns to ramp up their outreach efforts to Hispanic voters throughout the state. The activities include strategic planning meetings, volunteer training, extensive mailings and door-to-door canvassing.

The candidates are also making frequent barnstorming stops in the area. Temo Figueroa, Obama's Latino Vote Director, said the campaign has dedicated an unprecedented $20 million to target Hispanics nationwide.

"A significant portion of that money will go to Florida because of the sheer numbers of Latino voters in the state," said Figueroa. Millions of dollars a week have also been spent on Spanish-language television and radio advertisements. New data released by a group at the University of Wisconsin, which is monitoring national campaign advertisements, show Obama is outspending McCain on television ads in Florida 3-to-1.

The Obama campaign has also set up a national headquarters in Tampa and has around 200 staffers and thousands of volunteers working in the state. Mario Diaz, the Southeast Regional Communications Director for McCain's campaign, said their candidate didn't need to spend as much on ads, because he already has a track record with Hispanics, particularly on issues of immigration, drug trafficking and foreign policy.

Until now, the polls in Florida suggest that could be true. But both candidates will continue appealing to Hispanics, particularly those in Central Florida, hoping to persuade this critical demographic to swing the state their way.

"The person who wins the Tampa media market -- the largest in the state with a population the size of Colorado -- has won the state of Florida in the presidential elections since 1980," said Dave Beattie. "So, obviously, winning here in Florida is pretty predictive of who wins the elections."

As an ethnic community and political bloc, Pakistani Americans are not large in number, but many are deeply engaged in what the next U.S. administration's policy will be toward Pakistan.FRONTLINE/World's Charlotte Buchen reports.

Correspondent Marisa Helms profiles a hip-hop artist from Minnesota's ethnic Hmong community. Tou Saiko Lee is using his music...and traditions from Hmong culture to get the young people in his community to vote.

The answer to today's Geo Quiz is Cygnus, The Swan. It's a constellation of stars visible in the Northern Hemisphere, and it figures in a science project aimed at mapping light pollution worldwide. Anchor Katy Clark gets details from Dennis Ward, technology specialist for the Windows to the Universe project at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in Boulder, Colorado.

Our daily geography quiz.

Two new studies of tsunamis in the Indian Ocean suggest that 2004 killer wave was larger than any tsunami in that part of the world in perhaps 600 years. If giant tsunamis are so rare, how much effort should governments and aid agencies put into preparing for the next one? Keith Seinfeld of station KPLU reports from Seattle.