By Dennis Chin, Center for Community Change

The week is almost over, and the coverage keeps coming in.  Here is a look at what's out there:

• Over at Racewire:  The Colorlines Blog, two leaders from the Washington Community Action Network were interviewed.  Here is what Minnie B. West had to say:

In order for anything to really happen, we have to come together – not
just talk, but work. Whoever is elected president needs to hear us. We
have to put our best foot forward and see what needs to be done in our
communities, our cities, our counties, our states, and the federal
government.

• GaraLog gives an insightful analysis over at his blog:

I realized, hearing [the leaders], that the chief value of a forum like 
this is not in what the candidates say, and whether they pledge, as all 
did, to meet with a delegation of community leaders in their first month 
in office.  It is what they are required to listen to, and hopefully hear.

• Gara LaMarch at Atlantic Currents also gives his analysis of the event in the column:

It hit home for me powerfully, hearing them all speak, that the chief
value of a forum like this is not in what the candidates say, and
whether they pledge, as all did, to meet with a delegation of community
leaders in their first month in office. It is what they are required to
listen to, and hopefully hear. We think of elections as events in which
candidates work to persuade voters. But if democracy works right,
voters persuade candidates – their travels widen their world and
experiences, as happened to Robert Kennedy in 1968, and even Pat
Buchanan encountering economic misery in New Hampshire in 1992.

• OMBWatch gives a shout-out to an article by Manuel Pastor about the Forum:

The work of advocacy organizations during an election strengthens a very 
necessary, diverse dialogue on important issues...this San Francisco 
Chronicle editorial highlights [a] great example, the Heartland 
Presidential Forum organized by the Center for Community Change, Iowa Citizens 
for Community Improvement, and hundreds of grassroots groups around the
country. "The organizations hosting the forum understand this - they
are community groups whose bread and butter is the patient one-on-one
relationship-building that builds movements, and they see elections as
but a moment in a long process of social change. But moments count."

• This blogger calls the Forum "The best presidential forum you haven't heard about":

We need more of these types of events for the candidates, where the
questions are asked by those who will be voting for our next President.
Nothing was canned or phony to me, it was genuine concern based in
living a life in these here United States. The American's were from all
walks of life, investors, farmers, undocumented immigrants who have
worked hard to make a life here and still fear being deported. Single
mothers who worry about making ends meet and feeding their children
every day. I could go on and on..but hopefully you get my point dear
reader. So watch our Americans in action and how the candidates
responded to them.