Live Blogging the “All-American Presidential Forum”

7:00 p.m.

T-minus 2 hours and counting. I have arrived here in the media room at the Blackburn Center on the Howard University campus in Washington, D.C. This is my first time blogging from a large media event and I am installed in a cavernous room with hundreds of other print and electronic media people. All of the serious media is here (I even saw a place set up for Maureen Dowd :) ) along with the little ole bloggers like me.

The debate will be moderated by Tavis Smiley and will feature a group of panelists to question the candidates: Michael Martin, Ruben Navarette, and DeWayne Wickham. This is the first time a primetime presidential debate features questioning by an all minority panel of journalists. The focus of the debate will come from the NYT best seller, Covenant With Black America.

A disclaimer before the debate begins…I am an Obama supporter and I volunteer for his campaign in my spare time. Despite this declared allegiance I hope to be as objective as possible in my analysis of the debate.

Here are some anticipated topics for the debate that may differ a little from the other Democratic debates so far: the Supreme Court decisions today striking down the use of race in K-12 student assignment plans, the effort to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

Danielle Holley-Walker