McCain vs. Obama: The Choice 2008

Sunday October 26, 2008 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld and repeating on Saturday, November 1 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld

It has been called one of the most historic presidential elections in our nation's history - Barack Obama versus John McCain. It is a race that pits the iconoclast against the newcomer, the heroic prisoner of war against the first African American nominated by a major party. This documentary examines the rich personal and political biographies of these two men.

The Choice 2008 draws on in-depth interviews with the advisers, friends and those closest to these unlikely candidates, as well as with seasoned observers of American politics, who together tell the definitive story of these men and their ascent to their party's nominations.

With the race narrowed to these two men - one whose life was focused by his military service and his years as a POW in Hanoi, the other a black child raised by his white family who found identity in grassroots organizing and politics in the African American community of Chicago -- America is truly at a crossroads: historic lows in the public's confidence in our country's future; a battered incumbent overseeing an unpopular war in Iraq; an economy in deep trouble as the world's financial crisis plays out.

"This is a moment where people are both terrified and also hopeful," says producer/director Michael Kirk. "They have a choice between two extraordinary candidacies, two men who are trying to embody change in a time where many Americans seem to believe partisan dysfunction has curtailed the ability of our political parties to lead."

As journalist Matt Bai concludes, "Both of them, in what they convey to voters - one in a long career spanning decades, the other in a lightning flash of a career spanning what seems like minutes - [is] a sense of breaking with the status quo, a sense of change, a sense that things need to be done differently than they've been done before. And the question I think a lot of voters will have to ask themselves is, who's actually going to deliver?"

The Choice 2008 is a PBS FRONTLINE coproduction with the Kirk Documentary Group Ltd.