FROM KIRSTY WARK
Hello,
Tonight
Newsnight and
Newsnight Review present one big, special programme live from Times Square in New York.
With just four days to go until what is arguably the most exciting Presidential election in decades, we'll have the latest from the campaign, and will be assessing the impact on politics and culture of the Bush years.
I'll be joined by the West Wing actor, director and radio talk show host Ron Silver, the writer and critic Joe Queenan, the Conservative commentator Kathleen Parker, and the stand-up comic and political editor of The Onion, Baratunde Thurston.
In an extended programme Peter Marshall will be in Washington assessing whether the race is tightening in the key swing states.
We'll be debating the role of race and gender in the campaign. I've just done an interview with the one time Democrat Vice Presidential Candidate Geraldine Ferraro - the first woman ever to appear on a presidential ticket. A few weeks ago she said that Barack Obama wouldn't have been successful in the Presidential race if he was white. So, has she since decided to endorse him? Find out tonight...
Also, the Nobel Prize winning author, Toni Morrison, has been talking to me about her new novel about slavery, A Mercy, and explaining that she believes some African Americans have a problem with the fact that Obama is not from a slave family.
Iraq too has had a big place in the campaign. Film director Oliver Stone - chronicler of modern America, Vietnam, Wall Street and Presidents - talks to me about W his biopic about George W Bush's first term, which he tells me was an attempt to understand Bush and his motivations for the Iraq war.
We'll also be reviewing the HBO drama Generation Kill, the raw and unflinching TV series following the 1st Recon Marines as they battle their way to Baghdad. The films, from the makers of The Wire, are based on the book of the same name penned by Rolling Stone journalist, Even Wright, embedded with the Marines. The series is peppered with many uncompromising scenes showing terrible mistakes made by the Command, which have devastating consequences.
Generation Kill will be shown in the UK on FX TV in January.
And here's an astonishing figure - $450 million - reckoned to be the final tally of the spend by Obama and McCain on TV "infomercials" during the campaign. That's more than has ever been spent before. We'll be talking about the unprecedented role of the media in the election - on TV - on the web- and the avalanche of "political bodice-rippers" in the bookshops.
Please join me for a programme that promises to be frank, feisty and fun on this Halloween night.
Kirsty
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