BBC Broadcast | FORUM | Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was part of a special BBC television and radio broadcast, “Election USA,” taped last October in the Forum. Moderated by BBC correspondent Stephen Sackur, the panel also included former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke, former CIA Director James Woolsey, former presidential special assistant David Frum, Open Society Institute founder and chair George Soros, and Kennedy School BCSIA Director Graham Allison.

McKinnon on Ads and TiVo | BROWN BAG | Armed with a video of each ad that George W. Bush used during his two presidential runs, Mark McKinnon, Bush’s chief media advisor, talked about why the ads were created and what scares him about advertising’s future. “The free media is what drives campaigns,” he said. “What we do with ads is based on how the media will cover them.” With that in mind, he said changing technology makes him nervous. “TiVo is some-day going to put me out of business.”

Investing with Impact | LECTURE | Selecting stocks on the basis of social criteria can be as profitable as traditional methods, noted Amy Domini of Domini Social Investment, a pioneer in the responsible investment field, at a December panel. Domini said that increas-ingly individuals are looking for investments that will influence corporate behavior.

Peres on Peace | FORUM | When Simon Peres, former prime minister of Israel, spoke at an October Forum, he was frank about how Israelis and Palestinians feel toward one another. “I am not sure the Palestinians like us. I’m not sure we like them…[But] you cannot change your parents and you cannot change your neighbors.” For this reason, Peres said, steps toward mutual cooperation need to be taken now, not in the future. “Some of us say, ‘let’s wait for the next generation.’ There is no guarantee that the next generation will be more flexible. We have to make peace now.”

Orange Revolution | FORUM | In response to the Ukrainian election, Lubomyr Hajda of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, noted that Ukrainians had “mobilized a political nation of different backgrounds and languages.” The December panel on Ukraine’s Orange Revolution also included Lucan Way of Temple University, Margarita Balmaceda of Seton Hall University, and Kennedy School lecturer Richard Morningstar.

Death Doesn’t Become Him | LECTURE | “I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing than standing with those who have been wrongly convicted,” said Bryan Stevenson MPA 1985 at a discussion sponsored by the Center for Public Leadership. Stevenson, introduced by Professor Mark Moore as a “river of talent” who had returned to the school, runs the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit in Alabama that represents prisoners on death row. “Our goal,” Stevenson said, “is to put ourselves out of a job.”

Weak Link | FORUM | The middle powers are the “weak link” in establishing long-term solutions in Darfur, according to former force commander of the UN Mission to Rwanda Romeo Dallaire. “They are standing on the sidelines and doing nothing.” Dallaire was part of an October panel of human rights activists who condemned Sudanese government-sanctioned genocide. The panel was moderated by Michael Ignatieff, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and also included Kennedy School lecturer Samantha Power.

Election Perspective | FORUM | Survival issues, such as civil rights, affirmative action, and equal opportunity, trumped moral issues for black voters, who voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry in November, according to leading black journalists at a Forum held one week after the election. “This could be one of the most important times in American history. This is not about the next 4 years, but the next 30 years,” noted Rochelle Riley of The Detroit Free Press.

Campaign Managers Remember | FORUM | When asked to share with the audience any bad advice they were given, Mary Beth Cahill, John Kerry’s campaign manager, didn’t hesitate. “What about John McCain for vice president?” she said. Cahill, currently a fellow at the Institute of Politics, was part of a panel discussion of campaign managers and journalists that traded war stories about the most recent presidential election, including what went right, what went wrong, and what they’ll remember the most.

An Important Four Years | FORUM | Journalist William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, called the 2004 election “the culmination of a 36-year rolling alignment” in the American political structure. Kristol delivered the Theodore White Lecture on Press and Politics in the Forum.