Barack Obama and Mitt Romney faced off in another feisty debate last night in Boca Raton. The candidates debated foreign policy, with a heavy focus on relations in the Middle East. Today, we check the facts from the debate and discuss the nuts and bolts of foreign policy. We also get to the bottom of abandoned California Proposition 40 and check in with KPCC reporter Frank Stolze, who's taking voters' temperature at Inglewood’s Serving Spoon. Plus, Monster energy drinks are under federal investigation after a 14-year-old girl died after consuming two cans of the caffeinated beverage. All that and more on today's AirTalk.
Final presidential debate: it’s all over but the voting
President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney face off in another feisty debate last night at Lynn University in Boca Raton. Romney and Obama debated foreign policy, with a heavy focus on relations in the Middle East.
The candidates went in swinging, with Obama more aggressive than in the previous two debates, but they tended to agree on many foreign policy issues. Some post-debate analysis and a remark from Obama during the debate drew attention to Romney’s apparent “endorsement” of the President’s foreign policy. Although moderator Bob Schieffer tried to steer the conversation towards issues abroad, both candidates drew discussion back to domestic concerns and the economy, where their differences are more pronounced.
How will the foreign policy debate shape the election? Do Obama’s and Romney’s plans for foreign policy differ significantly enough to matter to voters? Which issues will resonate most now that the three debates are over?
Guest
Eugene Kiely, deputy director, FactCheck.org, a project of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center
Mike Shuster, diplomatic correspondent and roving foreign correspondent, NPR News
Elizabeth Saunders, Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars & Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University
Proposition 40 abandoned after court ruling
California voters may feel besieged by the host of campaign wars being waged over next month’s state ballot measures, but the battle over Proposition 40 stopped before it ever started. The measure is a referendum asking voters whether or not they want to keep newly drawn state Senate districts established by an independent remapping commission, which also happens to put Republicans at risk of losing seats.
After spending $2 million to get the proposition on the ballot in the hopes of eliminating the new districts, Republican lawmakers and activists dropped their campaign supporting the referendum following a January state Supreme Court ruling that validated the redrawn districts.
In the official 2012 state ballot pamphlet, Julie Vandermost, chairwoman of Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting (FAIR), which had called for the referendum, wrote “Due to the State Supreme Court's ruling … we have suspended our campaign and no longer seek a NO vote.”
The California Republican Party, which helped pay to put the measure on the ballot, is also telling voters to disregard the organization's original campaign and vote to keep the new maps.
Bob Stern, the former President of the Center for Governmental Studies, a group based in LA, tells us that even though the Republicans originally wanted to reject the redistricting plan, since they have withdrawn their support, “everybody is saying vote yes. There is nobody against this proposition.”
So why did the Republicans withdraw their support? Stern says that since the Supreme Court ruled that the new district lines would be kept anyway, the Republicans “wanted to spend their money on other things.”
Guest:
Bob Stern, the former President of the Center for Governmental Studies, a group based in LA, that studied redistricting among other governmental process issues
Low-tech vs. high tech to stop cell phones in prison
California prison officials are trying a new tack to stop cell phone use by inmates. They are trying to block cell phone signals, but the technology has failed when used in other states. Every year, thousands of cell phones are confiscated in California prisons.
Inmates use them for various and nefarious reasons - ordering hits and managing gang activity from the inside out. How the phones get in is just as varied and shadowy. Evidence and testimony from officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) show that staff members smuggle in phones for a lucrative profit.
Yet, corrections officers are not searched when they show up for work. Some reports say it would violate their contract, others say the state doesn't want to pay for the shift time resulting from searches. What is the best way to stop cell phones in prisons? Why aren't corrections officers searched?
Guests:
Rina Palta, KPCC reporter
Ryan Sherman, spokesperson for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA)
KPCC’s Politics Café at Inglewood’s Serving Spoon
As part of KPCC’s continuing online project That’s My Issue, KPCC Reporter Frank Stoltze drops into Inglewood’s Serving Spoon restaurant. In between bites of rich soul food, he’ll ask Citizen Joe and Jane to dish on politics. With polling day coming soon, what’s your issue?
Guest:
Frank Stoltze, KPCC Reporter
Alleged Monster energy drink-related deaths prompt federal investigation
Federal health officials are investigating reports of energy drink-related medical problems. Since 2009, five deaths and one heart attack have been linked to consumption of Monster energy drinks.
The federal investigation follows the most recent fatality: a Maryland family is suing the company for negligence and the wrongful death of their 14-year-old daughter, who went into cardiac arrest after consuming two cans of the energy drink. The coroner’s report showed that her minor, underlying heart condition was aggravated by caffeine, and that she died of caffeine toxicity.
Monster’s labeling warns of high caffeine content, and as of next December will include warnings about dangers to children, pregnant women, and people with caffeine sensitivity. How extensive should labeling on highly caffeinated beverages be? How can children’s consumption of potentially dangerous drinks be monitored or prevented?
Guests:
David Stewart, professor of marketing at Loyola Marymount University
Katherine Mangu-Ward, managing editor for Reason Magazine
Popularity in high school pays off later in life
Move over Breakfast Club kids, the “in crowd” still rules the world. This, according to new research that finds that popular high school students earn more than their freaks and geeks counterparts decades after graduation. Researchers crunched data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a survey of over 10,000 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high school in 1957.
Back in 1957, the students were asked to list three people they considered to be their best friends. Those students, whose names were written down the most, were deemed the most popular. Decades later, the researchers have followed up with them to see what they could learn about the impact of popularity then and now. Turns out, those popular kids were more likely to have come from “warm family environments,” to have been smarter than their peers and to have been somewhat more affluent.
Today, those same people are earning two percent more than their peers. Does this mean that our dearly-held Revenge of the Nerds fantasies are just that – fantasies? Is there anything the rest of us can do to buck this trend?
Guests:
Sarah Kliff, reporter, Washington Post
Liberalism reborn?
President Obama is a big advocate of change, and his shot at reshaping the country is only the latest effort in modern liberalism’s long-running attempt to reinvent America by changing citizens’ relationship to their government.
Like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson, he is leading a fourth wave of liberalism, one that has expanded the reach and cost of government. Now, as voters gear up for November 6th, the fortunes of President Obama and the democrats are intertwined and uncertain.
Will his gamble on healthcare pay off? Is liberalism on its last legs, or about to be reborn? Has either party really figured out who Barack Obama really is?
Guest:
Charles R. Kesler, author of “I Am Change: Barack Obama and the crisis of liberalism;” is the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, and the editor of the Claremont Review of Books. He is a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy