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Introduction
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How to Use
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Program
Descriptions
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Previewing
Questions

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Postviewing
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Enrichment
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Student Page
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Credits
Program Descriptions

The two programs are scheduled to be broadcast on the following dates. Broadcast dates, however, may vary slightly from area to area. Educators may tape either of the programs in the Vote for Me series and use them in the classroom for one year after broadcast. Please check with your local public television station for any last minute changes.

Parts 1 and 2:Politics 101 and Making a Big Noise
Monday, October 28 from 9 to 11 pm (ET) on PBS

As the series tours the country in search of our many political cultures, the themes of Vote for Me emerge: How does politics reflect American society? What does politics fulfill in people? What kind of person runs for office? Who gets involved in campaigns, who doesn't and what difference does it make?

To get the answers, Vote for Me goes behind-the-scenes into the back rooms of the election machine and comes up with characters and stories like: Hank Sheinkopf, a tough-talking, New York City-based media consultant, creating strident attack ads for his dignified client, Alabama Chief Justice Sonny Hornsby; a desperate gubernatorial candidate's all night bus tour of California, including a 3 a.m. photo op in a chicken processing plant; and in Chicago, veterans of the city's old machine politics, black, brown and white, demonstrating how to apply streetwise techniques in today's newer politics to carry off the most coveted prize, the alderman's seat. Candidates go door-to-door, campaign staffs hound the press and volunteers hit the streets with signs, flyers and bullhorns.

Parts 3 and 4: Political Junkies and The Political Education of Maggie Lauterer
Tuesday, October 29 from 9 to 11 pm (ET) on PBS

Evening two of Vote for Me begins with the question: Why does anyone get involved in politics?

Perhaps it's something you're born with. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, teenagers who already harbor gubernatorial ambitions attend the annual Girls and Boys State Legislature. They put together the coalitions necessary to become student governor-for-a-day and make the connections that elect them for real in the future.

Maybe its something you can learn. In Atlanta, competing candidate training seminars, sponsored by the Christian Coalition and the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, teach the basic skills necessary to win local office to their candidates of the future--while warning the faithful about the threat each other's organization poses. balloon

Maybe it's in the water. In Johnston, Rhode Island, the locals are so passionate that 200 of them are vying for city office. And for those who win, that passion turns into boisterous city council meetings that sometimes break into fist fights -- watched across the state as entertainment programming on a cable access station. And for those who have wondered what it might be like if they ran for office, Vote for Me ends with the story of Maggie Lauterer, an "average" citizen with no political experience who ran for Congress. A local television personality, she answers the call when no one else decides to challenge the powerful incumbent in her western North Carolina district. For the next year, we watch her transformation as she learns the political ropes: struggling through fund-raising calls to complete strangers, preparing for her first televised debate, and trying to run a clean campaign that she'll be proud of when she makes "her report to her maker." In the face of an increasingly bitter contest, she faces the ultimate question: is she willing to do whatever it takes to win?

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