Democracy in America - Special Reports from CNN.com

As president, George W. Bush will face issues that touch how Americans live, where they live, how their children's future will be shaped and how the nation will interact with the world outside its borders. The CNN series Democracy in America, which aired during the 2000 election season, looked at some of these issues, as well as how the lives of the two men who fought for the presidency prepared them to lead the United States. Living the Bush legacy

Facing a variety of problems, from high dropout rates to low grades, schools across the country are searching for new solutions to improve education.

• Revolution in Milwaukee
• A choice education
• Smaller classes, better students?

In the past 30 years, health care has undergone a transition to managed care that has altered medicine for both the patients and the practitioners.

• Living in a world of managed care
• Medicare drug benefit
• Patiently waiting for a bill of rights

Too much time caught in traffic, too much air pollution, too little time with the family. These are all realities created by a prosperous economy and a booming urban culture.

• Atlanta's development dilemma
• Have car, will commute
• Won't you be my neighbor?

A variety of crises around the world all compete for attention from the new president the day he takes office.

• Crossing the line
• The new superpower on the block
• An African tragedy
• Brinksmanship is back
• The U.S. military: Ready or not?

For nearly 50 years, the threat of "mutually assured destruction" served as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons by the superpowers. But is nuclear deterrence still a sound strategy?

• Silos still poised to launch
• Star Wars, Episode Two

Raised in a political family, Al Gore Jr. was groomed for the nation's highest office.

• Son of a senator
• An attention to detail
• Political record
• Gore's family tree

Facing high dropout rates and low grades, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, public school district launches an experimental program using public money to pay for children to attend private schools. The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program has faced controversy and court battles but behind the voucher debate are parents wanting the best education for their children.
Read more about Milwaukee's voucher program

•	A choice education
•	The history of school vouchers
•	Do smaller classes equal better students?
•	This old schoolhouse

•	Vouchers, Charters, Tuition Tax Credits across America
•	Education ballot initiatives

•	Barry Lynn, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
•	Clint Bolick, Institute for Justice
•	Chat transcript: Users question advocate and opponent of vouchers


	"When a school district receives federal funds to teach poor children, we expect them to learn. And if they dont, parents should get the money to make a different choice."		"I will not go along with any plan that would drain taxpayer money away from our public schools in the form of vouchers."
More...		More...

In the past 30 years, health care has undergone a transformation that has made the practice of medicine almost unrecognizable to its practitioners. A majority of Americans are now enrolled in some type of managed care plan. For older doctors, it has been a struggle to adapt to a new world while younger doctors entering the profession have no idea of how it was in the past.
Read more about how some doctors are coping

•	The rise of the HMO
•	Medicare drug benefit
•	Patiently waiting

•	Uninsured in America
•	Health care costs
•	HMO and drug companies

•	Dr. Thomas R. Reardon, American Medical Association
•	Karen Ignagni, The American Association of Health Plans
•	Chat transcript: Drs. Ron Bronow and Carol Hurvitz talk about HMOs


"The best way to make a health bureaucracy responsive is by giving seniors the right to choose."	"It's just wrong to have life-and-death medical decisions made by bean-counters at HMOs, who don't have a license to practice medicine, and don't have a right to play God."
More...	More...

Atlanta, Georgia, has been called the fastest growing settlement in human history. But along with prosperity, growth has created problems. Atlanta's interstates are clogged and Atlanta drivers have one of the longest average commutes in the country. Traffic also has contributed to the area's poor air quality, causing the federal government to cut off funding for new road construction.
Read more about Atlanta's development dilemma.

•	For Atlanta 'race has always mattered'
•	Have car, will commute
•	Won't you be my neighbor?

•	Air
•	Water
•	Traffic
•	Growth

•	Peter Calthorpe, Congress for a New Urbanism
•	Peter Gordon and Harry Richardson, University of Southern California
•	Chat transcript: Users ask land-use strategist Christopher Leinberger and the Sierra Club's Deron Lovaas about urban growth


"The old system of mandate, regulate and litigate only sends potential developers off in search of greener pastures -- literally. Brownfields get passed over, while greenfields get paved over. Washington's command-and-control mindset is an obstacle to reform."	"Plan well, and you have a community that nurtures commerce and private life. Plan badly, and you have what so many of us suffer from first-hand: gridlock, sprawl and that uniquely modern evil of all-too-little time."
More...	More...

The civil war in Angola, India and Pakistan's clashes over Kashmir, Uneasy relations with China, and a variety of humanitarian crises around the world all compete for the U.S.'s attention, and all will await the next president the day he takes office. CNN correspondents take a look at these issues facing the U.S. abroad.
Crossing the line | Brinksmanship is back | An African tragedy | New superpower on the block

•	The reluctant superpower
•	Holding out hope: Cooling hot spots
•	The U.S. military: Ready or not?

•	Conflicts around the world
•	U.S. military deployments
•	History lesson

•	Ian Lesser, Rand Corporation
•	Jonathan Clarke, Cato Institute
•	Clarke, Lesser chat with CNN viewers


"We have seen a steady erosion of American power and an unsteady exercise of American influence."	"We must always have the will to defend our enduring interests, from Europe to the Middle East to Japan and Korea. We must strengthen our partnerships with Africa, Latin America and the rest of the developing world."
More...	More...

For nearly 50 years, the United States and the Soviet Union maintained a "delicate balance of terror." The threat of "Mutually Assured Destruction," or MAD served as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons by either side. Though the threat of nuclear war has faded, deterrence remains a centerpiece of American and Russian strategy. Is nuclear deterrence still a sound strategy, or is it an outdated system unable to adapt to a variety of potential enemies?
Read more about rehearsing doomsday.

•	Star wars, episode two
•	Broken arrows and bent spears
•	Paying for the bomb

•	The Nuclear Powers
•	Nuclear Arms Tracker
•	Nuclear History

•	Henry Kelly, president, Federation of American Scientists
•	Edward L. Warner III, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction
•	Kelly and Jack Spencer of The Heritage Foundation chat about nuclear weapons


"Our nation must cut off the demand for nuclear weapons - by addressing the security concerns of those who renounce these weapons. And our nation must diminish the evil attraction of these weapons for rogue states - by rendering them useless with missile defense."	"Nuclear unilateralism will hinder, rather than help, arms control. Strategic stability can never be a one-way street ... That is why arms control and strategic modernization have to be built upon planned and negotiated agreements."
More...	More...

Raised in a political family, Vice President Al Gore was groomed for the nation's highest office. Gore initially resisted politics after becoming disillusioned with government during the Vietnam War. But the tug of the family business was hard to resist and Gore ended up in Washington, first as a congressman, then a senator like his father and then into the nation's second highest office. After nearly two years on the campaign trail, Gore could not have predicted the bittersweet post-election turmoil that cost him the presidency, despite his victory in the popular vote.
Read more about Gore's journey to the race for the White House

•	An attention to detail
•	Two years in the life
•	Gore's inner circle
•	All in the family

•	Political Record
•	Timeline
•	Campaign Finances
•	Family tree

•	Fred Greenstein, Princeton University Professor of Politics
•	Allan Lichtman American University, Chair, Department of History
•	Gore biographer Bill Turque talks with CNN

"One of the lessons here I've learned from her is a way to enrich my own experience of life by opening up to the heart as well as the head... she's been a great teacher for me."	"Joe Lieberman has the experience and the integrity, he has the courage and the commitment, and for all of his public life, Joe Lieberman has stood for working families."
More...	More...

In his "nomadic years," George W. Bush resisted the pull of politics. But after almost two years of campaigning and more than a month of post-election uncertainty, Bush will become only the second presidential son to wind up as Commander in Chief himself, and only the third president to win the nation's highest office while losing the popular vote. Experience as governor of Texas, personal popularity and unprecedented fund-raising prowess have helped the president-elect with the famous name make a name for himself.
Read more about George W. Bush and his road to the White House

•	The Bush style
•	Will "W" stand for "winner?"
•	Bush's inner circle
•	All in the family

•	Political Record
•	Timeline
•	Campaign Finances
•	Family tree

•	Fred Greenstein, Princeton University Professor of Politics
•	Allan Lichtman American University, Chair, Department of History

"I saw a[n] elegant beautiful woman who turned out not only to be elegant and beautiful, but very smart and willing put up with my rough edges. And I must confess, [she] has smoothed them off over time."	"I am proud to announce that Dick Cheney, a man of great integrity, sound judgement and experience, is my choice to be the next vice president of the United States."
More...	More...