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This week on Uprising:

* Obama Poised to Win With More than 350 Electoral Votes
* Cornel West on Obama, Elections, Race, and Democracy
* Black Agenda Report on the Coming Post-Election Struggle
* Conversation with Robert Jensen: Elections Don’t Matter

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Obama Poised to Win With More than 350 Electoral Votes

With dozens of polls released each week about the chances of the two major party presidential candidates, it’s not easy to disentangle reality from statistics. While most polls agree that Senator Obama is in the lead nationally, an October 22nd Associated Press poll claimed that Obama and McCain were tied at 44 and 43 percent respectively. Some say that’s the result of McCain’s successful deployment of “Joe the Plumber” during the third debate. But, a recent Gallup poll puts Obama at 52 to McCain’s 43 percent support. Are both polls right? What most polls these days miss are younger voters who exclusively use cell phones. Cell phone users are generally not polled although a new Zogby poll in collaboration with a mobile ad company surveyed over 3000 cell phone users and found a whopping 71% support for Obama versus 25% for McCain. The media are also discussing the so-called Bradley effect of support for African American candidates appearing higher in the lead up to an election than on election day itself. However, it is useful to remember that presidents are not elected by the popular national vote, rather by the electoral college which depends on who wins what state.

GUEST: Sam Wang, Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Princeton Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University, runs the blog, Princeton Election Consortium, which, based on state-by-state polls, gives 354 electoral college votes to Obama and 184 to McCain

For more information, visit election.princeton.edu.

Cornel West on Obama, Elections, Race, and Democracy

With the historic 2008 presidential election around the corner, a majority of national polls show Democratic candidate Barack Obama with the advantage over his rival John McCain. The prospects of Obama becoming the first African-American president in our nation’s history underscore how much race and democracy matter in this election. A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor goes as far as to suggest that the Obama campaign means that the influence of racism in the United States is waning. Dr. Cornel West, who has authored best selling books on the subjects of race and democracy, has been busy delivering lectures on those and other important topics ahead of the release of his new book, “Hope on a Tightrope.” After speaking to hundreds at the University of Alabama, a report in the Tuscaloosa News said West noted that race relations may grow even tenser should Obama win in the coming days. Indeed, Dr. West’s new book of words and wisdom opens with a chapter declaring a state of emergency where we find ourselves in “one of the most truly prophetic moments in the history of America.” As the title, “Hope on a Tightrope” suggests, the preeminent scholar believes that the U.S. is teetering – he muses on issues that will shape our future such as leadership, family, freedom and social justice.

GUEST: Cornel West, author of “Hope on a Tightrope”. For more information, visit www.cornelwest.com.

Black Agenda Report on the post-Election Struggle to Come

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is on the post-Election Struggle to Come.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Conversation with Robert Jensen: Elections Don’t Matter

More than 35,000 people attended a late night Florida rally on Wednesday to see Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton. Millions of people are estimated to have already voted early in states across the nation and turnout is already breaking previous records, especially among African Americans and young people. It is these demographics that Barack Obama’s campaign has especially reached out to, hoping to elect the nation’s first Black president. On Wednesday evening, the Obama campaign aired a 30 minute paid advertisement on 7 major TV networks simultaneously in a final push to make his case for presidency. This presidential race has been the most expensive in the nation’s history. Meanwhile, the McCain-Palin camp has also been furiously getting their message out to voters, denouncing a new Obama ad critical of Palin, and challenging the LA Times to release a video of Obama attending a dinner where he praised Rashid Khalidi, a prominent Palestinian rights activist and scholar, who we’ve have on our program in the past. With just days left before the election, we have a conversation with Robert Jensen.

GUEST: Robert Jensen, Professor of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of several books including The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege, and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” — Martin Luther King Jr.