Katherine Anne Couric is an American journalist and presenter. She is founder of Katie Couric Media, a multimedia news and production company. She also publishes a daily newsletter, Wake Up Call. From 2013 to 2017, she was Yahoo's Global News Anchor. Couric has been a television host at all of the Big Three television networks in the United States, and in her early career she was an assignment editor for CNN. She worked for NBC News from 1989 to 2006, CBS News from 2006 to 2011, and ABC News from 2011 to 2014. In 2021, she appeared as a guest host for the game show Jeopardy!, the first woman to host the flagship American version of the show in its history.
Kathleen Parker is a columnist for The Washington Post. Parker is a consulting faculty member at the Buckley School of Public Speaking, a popular guest on cable and network news programs and a regular guest on NBC's Meet the Press, and previously on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews.
David Plouffe is an American political and business strategist best known as the campaign manager for Barack Obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign. A long-time Democratic Party campaign consultant, he was a partner at the party-aligned campaign consulting firm AKPD Message and Media, which he joined in 2000.
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator, author, and reality television personality who served as the ninth governor of Alaska from 2006 until her resignation in 2009. She was the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee alongside U.S. Senator John McCain.
Nicolle Wallace is an American television political commentator and author. She is the anchor of the MSNBC news and politics program Deadline: White House and a former co-host of the ABC daytime talk show The View. As a political analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, she is a frequent on-air contributor to the programs Today, The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle and Morning Joe.
The 2008 presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton, then junior United States senator from New York, was announced on her website on January 20, 2007. Hillary Clinton was previously the First Lady of the United States and First Lady of Arkansas prior to her election as U.S. Senator from New York. She is also the wife of former President Bill Clinton. Clinton was the source of much media speculation since having expressed interest in being a candidate in the 2008 presidential election since at least October 2002.
The following is a timeline of major events leading up to and immediately following the United States presidential election of 2008. The election was the 56th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008, but its significant events and background date back to about 2002. The Democratic Party nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, defeated the Republican Party's nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
The 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain, the longtime senior U.S. Senator from Arizona, was launched with an informal announcement on February 28, 2007, during a live taping of the Late Show with David Letterman, and formally launched at an event on April 25, 2007. His second candidacy for the Presidency of the United States, he had previously run for his party's nomination in the 2000 primaries and was considered as a potential running mate for his party's nominee, then-Governor George W. Bush of Texas. After winning a majority of delegates in the Republican primaries of 2008, on August 29, leading up to the convention, McCain selected Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate for Vice President. Five days later, at the 2008 Republican National Convention, McCain was formally selected as the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 2008 presidential election.
The United States presidential debates of 2008 were sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a bipartisan organization that sponsored four debates that occurred at various locations around the United States in September and October 2008. Three of the debates involved the presidential nominees, and one involved the vice-presidential nominees.
The sketch comedy television show Saturday Night Live aired several critically acclaimed sketches parodying then Alaskan Governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin in the lead-up to the 2008 United States presidential election. The sketches featured former cast member Tina Fey, who returned as a guest star to portray Palin. Fey won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her impersonation of Palin.
Barack Obama, then junior United States senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for President of the United States on February 10, 2007, in Springfield, Illinois. After winning a majority of delegates in the Democratic primaries of 2008, on August 23, leading up to the convention, the campaign announced that Senator Joe Biden of Delaware would be the vice presidential nominee. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention on August 27, Barack Obama was formally selected as the Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States in 2008. He was the first African American in history to be nominated on a major party ticket.
Stephen Edward Schmidt is an American political and corporate strategist, media commentator and founder of The Warning. He is known for working on Republican political campaigns, including those of President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arizona Senator John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign.
Sarah Palin, while serving as Governor of Alaska, was nominated as the first female candidate of the Republican Party for Vice President of the United States. Following the nomination, her public image came under close media scrutiny, particularly regarding her religious perspective on public life, her socially conservative views, and a perceived lack of experience. Palin's experience in foreign and domestic politics came under criticism among conservatives as well as liberals following her nomination. A poll taken by Rasmussen Reports just after the Republican National Convention in the first week of September 2008 found that Palin was more popular than either Barack Obama or John McCain; however, this perception later reversed. At the same time, Palin became more popular among Republicans than McCain. A February 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll showed 71% of Americans felt Palin lacked the qualifications necessary to be President of the United States.
The Sarah Palin interviews with Katie Couric were a series of interviews of the 2008 U.S. Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin conducted by CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric. They were recorded and broadcast on television in several programs before the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Couric received the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award and the Walter Cronkite Award for Journalism Excellence for the interview.
Casey Kauffman is an American journalist who works for Al Jazeera English, the first English-language news channel headquartered in the Middle East.
Douglas Schoen is an American lawyer, political analyst, author, lobbyist, and commentator.
The Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism is an annual event held at Tufts University. It is sponsored by the Film and Media Studies Program (FMS) at Tufts University, the Edward R. Murrow Center for the Advancement of Public Diplomacy, and the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. Dedicated to illuminating aspects of the many contributions Edward R. Murrow made to journalism and public diplomacy, the Forum brings together interdisciplinary panels to reflect on Murrow’s legacy and relate it to contemporary issues in journalism. The Forum debuted in 2006 with former Nightline host Ted Koppel serving as the keynote speaker and moderator examining the contemporary state of the news business. In 2007 retired CBS News anchor Dan Rather led a panel discussing the coverage of war and conflicts. In 2008 former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw and panelists explored the current state of political coverage. The 2009 panel was headlined by MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews, along with former Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis, and Janet Wu, WCVB-TV’s political reporter discussing the press’ role in encouraging or discouraging people from seeking public office. In 2010 panelists Casey Murrow, author Lynne Olson, and producer/Massachusetts ACLU Vice President Arnie Reisman discussed Murrow and his efforts to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy after the blacklist and the contemporary state of blacklisting, self-censorship, and political redlines for the media. In 2011 panelists Katie Couric and Jonathan Tisch discussed Couric's career as well as the state of journalism in a social media and technology-driven world. In 2012 panelists Brian Williams and Jonathan Tisch discussed Williams's career and tactics, opportunities, and challenges of covering campaigns in 2012. The 2013 forum featured Christiane Amanpour discussing the evolving role of foreign correspondents, while Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington examined the changing face of journalism in the digital age for the 2014 forum. In 2015, ABC News' Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos discussed reliability in the 24-hour news cycle.
Sarah Palin's candidacy for Vice President of the United States was publicly announced by then-presumptive Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain on August 29, 2008. As part of the McCain presidential campaign, Palin, then the incumbent Governor of Alaska, was officially nominated by acclamation at the 2008 Republican National Convention on September 3. The McCain–Palin ticket lost the 2008 presidential election on November 4 to the Barack Obama–Joe Biden ticket.
Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women is a 2010 non-fiction book written by the American journalist Rebecca Traister and published by Free Press. The book focuses on women's contributions to and experiences of the 2008 United States presidential election. Traister places particular focus on four main political figures—Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, and Elizabeth Edwards—as well as women in the media, including the journalists Katie Couric and Rachel Maddow, and the comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who portrayed Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live, respectively. Traister also describes her personal experience of the electoral campaign and her shift from supporting John Edwards to Hillary Clinton.
Jacqueline Michele Alemany is an American journalist and political reporter, who is a congressional correspondent for The Washington Post. She previously authored Power Up, an early-morning newsletter, and covered policy issues including the opioid crisis. In 2021, she was appointed as the anchor of The Early 202, a political newsletter of The Washington Post.
