Now Playing

Loading streams...

Podcasts & RSS Feeds

Election 2012RSS
All ContentRSS
View all podcasts & RSS feeds

WWNO People

Paul Maassen
Paul Maassen
General Manager
Poppy Tooker
Poppy Tooker
Host of Louisiana Eats!
Susan Larson
Susan Larson
Host of The Reading Life
Fred Kasten
Fred Kasten
Announcer & Producer
Eve Troeh
Eve Troeh
News Director

Election 2012

Follow 89.9 WWNO and NPR News on the road to Election Day with this mix of local and national stories.

Live Election Coverage Begins Tuesday, Nov. 6 at 7 p.m.

As the polls close on the East Coast, WWNO and NPR's Election Night Coverage begins at 7 p.m. All Things Considered's Robert Siegel and Melissa Block will be joined by NPR Contributors E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution and Matt Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon. Andrew Kohut and Michael Dimock of the Pew Research Center will have exit poll analysis.

NPR's Ari Shapiro will report from the Mitt Romney's  election night event and Scott Horsley will be at President Obama's election night event. NPR reporters and producers will be stationed with candidates and at state party headquarters nationwide, bringing the results and mood from key electoral states and Congressional, Senate, and Gubernatorial races.

Locally, WWNO's Jack Hopke will be joined by Errol Laborde, producer of WYES' Informed Sources and editor of New Orleans Magazine. Listen for local election updates on the hour and half-hour from 7 - 10 p.m.

----

Campaign 2012 Political Calendar

Track where the presidential candidates are traveling in the run-up to November 2012 with this interactive calendar. Check back often for updates.

Pages

It's All Politics
1:36 pm
Tue September 11, 2012

Politics, The Pledge And A Peculiar History

Next imagePrevious image
Credit Spencer Platt / Getty Images
A woman recites the Pledge of Allegiance at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Aug. 29.
Credit Fenno Jacobs / Library of Congress
Schoolchildren in Southington, Conn., recite the Pledge of Allegiance in 1942, around the time the custom of placing a hand over the heart replaced the original hand position.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By editor

Originally published on Tue September 11, 2012 4:05 pm

When Mitt Romney uses the Pledge of Allegiance as a metaphor for all that's good and right with America, how many in his audience know that the two-sentence loyalty oath was penned not by the Founding Fathers in 1776, but a fascist preacher more than 100 years later?

Or that the original recommended posture was with a straightened arm raised upward and outward? Or that it was changed to the hand over the heart during World War II after the Nazis adopted the original as their salute?

Read more
The Two-Way
11:59 am
Tue September 11, 2012

Moody's Warns Of Downgrade If Congress Doesn't Move On Fiscal Cliff

Credit J. Scott Applewhite / AP
Speaker of the House John Boehner says he has little of hope of reaching a resolution on the so-called "fiscal cliff."
Share
E-mail
Comments
By Eyder Peralta

We've already heard warnings about the so called "fiscal cliff" from the Federal Reserve and the Congressional Budget Office.

Read more
Presidential Race
4:18 am
Tue September 11, 2012

Romney Campaigns In 'Must-Win' Ohio

Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Tue September 11, 2012 8:57 am

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The presidential candidates are toning it down, we're told, on this 9/11. They'll stop their negative ads, they have said. But, of course, the campaigning will continue all fall. And Mitt Romney spent yesterday in Ohio. Over the weekend, Vice President Biden was there, as well. The Midwestern state is becoming like a second home to candidates in this presidential election season.

Read more
Presidential Race
2:31 am
Tue September 11, 2012

Rhetoric Aside, Few Details Of Romney's Tax Plan

Credit Charles Dharapak / AP
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney campaigns at PR Machine Works in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Tue September 11, 2012 2:59 pm

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's proposal to overhaul the tax code continues to draw scrutiny.

Romney says it is possible to cut tax rates without driving the government deeper into the red, and that he can make up for the lost revenue by closing tax loopholes. But analysts have had a hard time testing Romney's claim because he hasn't offered many specifics.

When he was pressed by NBC's David Gregory this weekend to give an example of a loophole he would close, Romney didn't offer much detail.

Read more
Politics
2:30 am
Tue September 11, 2012

Inside Obama's Decisions: From Libya To Lunch

Next imagePrevious image
Credit Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images
President Obama answers questions at the White House on Aug. 20.
Credit Pete Souza/The White House
In this photo from the October issue of Vanity Fair, writer Michael Lewis interviews Obama.
Credit Vanity Fair
Lewis' piece, "Obama's Way," appears in the October issue of Vanity Fair.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Tue September 11, 2012 8:57 am

To try to get a sense of what it really means to be the president of the United States, writer Michael Lewis spent six months in President Obama's shadow. Lewis hoped to find out just what it's like to be in the president's shoes — down to something as simple as how he decides what to wear every day.

Read more
Shots - Health Blog
4:37 pm
Mon September 10, 2012

Mitt Romney's Shifting Stance On Health Care

Credit Charles Dharapak / AP
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney talks about the Supreme Court's health care ruling near the U.S. Capitol in Washington in late June.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Mon September 10, 2012 5:26 pm

Mitt Romney seemed to make health care news in a Sunday interview on NBC's Meet the Press.

He said he might not want to repeal all of the Affordable Care Act.

Read more
Asia
4:37 pm
Mon September 10, 2012

Candidates Criticize China; Presidents Show Caution

Next imagePrevious image
Credit Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images
For more than three decades, presidential candidates have talked tough about China during the campaign season, but opted for more moderate policies as president. Republican nominee Mitt Romney, shown speaking in Colorado in July, accuses China of manipulating its currency in order to export its goods cheaply to the US.
Credit STR / AFP/Getty Images
China's growing economic might means that it has increasing power to push back against US policies that it does not like, according to analysts. This photo from August shows the construction on the Shanghai Tower, which will be the tallest building in Shanghai.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Mon September 10, 2012 5:26 pm

It has become a staple of U.S. presidential campaigns: Candidates talk about getting tough with China, only to adopt much more moderate positions once they are in office.

When Ronald Reagan ran against President Jimmy Carter in 1980, the challenger often blasted the incumbent for, in his words, "abandoning" Taiwan to establish diplomatic relations with China.

"There will be no more abandonment of friends and allies by the United States of America and I want very much to send that message," Reagan said.

Read more
Election 2012
3:11 pm
Mon September 10, 2012

Voting Laws In Several States Remain Unsettled

Credit iStockphoto.com
In South Carolina, Pennsylvania and several other states, new voter ID laws are being challenged in court just eight weeks before the general election.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Mon September 10, 2012 5:26 pm

Eight weeks before the presidential election, new laws passed by Republican legislatures that concern who can vote and when remain in the hands of federal and state judges.

Among the cases: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court this week will hear an appeal to overturn that state's new voter ID law. An appeal is expected in a case involving early voting in Ohio. And a federal court is still considering whether South Carolina can go ahead with its new voter ID law.

Read more
The Two-Way
10:49 am
Mon September 10, 2012

On The Campaign Trail: The Picture Of Joe Biden You Have To See

Credit Carolyn Kaster / AP
Vice President Joe Biden's talks to customers during a stop at Cruisers Diner in Seaman, Ohio on Sunday.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By editor

Originally published on Tue September 11, 2012 10:29 am

This past weekend was an odd one on the campaign trail. First, as NPR's Don Gonyea reported on Morning Edition, a muscled pizza man was so excited to see President Obama, he hugged him and picked him up a full foot off the ground.

Then there's Vice President Joe Biden who, um, canoodled with a biker lady at a Seaman, Ohio diner.

The picture captured by Carolyn Kaster of the Associated Press is priceless:

Read more
Election 2012
10:39 am
Mon September 10, 2012

Former Aides Talk Strategy For Homestretch

Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Mon September 10, 2012 1:17 pm

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. Coming up: The designers are sending their creations down the runway at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City. And just in case your invitations to some of those big-name shows got lost in the mail, we will bring the runway to you. We'll talk with a reporter who's in the mix to tell us what's hot and what's not. That's later in the program.

Read more

Pages