What does Mitt Romney do now? A historic look at what candidates who lost their bid for the presidency go on to do after the loss.

CNN's Chief Political Correspondent Candy Crowley on Obama and Romney's final hour.

By Samuel Burke, CNN

When America elects a president, the world watches. And Tuesday, it is the candidates' turn, as they wait with bated breath for the outcome. According to CNN's latest poll, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are tied in their quest for the popular vote. The outcome in the electoral college is far from certain.

What's also unclear is whether American foreign policy change will change, whether or not a new president takes office.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright knows exactly how tough it is to make foreign policy priorities and decisions. She has been campaigning for President Obama, and has kind words for her fellow Democrat on his approach.

"I think that he has been quite remarkable in the way that he has understood the issues that are out there for us to deal with that really do require partnership," she said.

She said she has a harder time understanding what former Governor Mitt Romney stands for.

"He has said, for instance, that Russia is our number one geostrategic problem, which made sense for the 20th century, but makes no sense in the 21st."

The United States' relationship with Russia, Albright said, must change no matter who is elected.  FULL POST

By Mick Krever, CNN

Avraham Burg says obsession with the holocaust is destroying Israel.

That may seem a strange statement, especially from an orthodox Jew and former speaker of the Knesset, but Burg says it is unhealthy.

“It’s too much,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “If you are traumatized, go through it. Don’t deny it. Don’t silence it. … [But] I see a day already in which the last holocaust survivor will pass away. It will happen in our lifetime. Then we shall wake up one day, one morning, and the holocaust will not be any more a personal experience, but it will be a kind of collective memory.”

For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to compare Iran to Germany in 1938, Burg said, is exploiting Israel’s traumas.

“I write about the different strategy for the future memory,” he said. “A strategy of trust between us and the world, rather that one of permanent trauma.”

Reconciliation is possible, says Burg, and one need look no further than Germany itself. FULL POST

It is an image still woefully rare: a woman conducting a major orchestra. But Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, did just that. She was the first woman to conduct a major American orchestra.

“It's such a conservative field,” Alsop told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “I think the idea of women in the ultimate leadership roles is still a big obstacle and an issue for people today.”

Alsop, who travels the world to conduct – in Britain, Brazil – says music is “inherent to our beings.”

“I think music - besides being able to bring people together and transform young people's lives, it also captures a moment, an emotional moment, for all of us. And I think when people are deprived of music, it's like taking away an emotional experience, denying them an emotional connection to living and to each other.”

CNN’s Juliet Fuisz produced this piece for television.

By Lucky Gold, CNN

Despite repeated assurances by U.S. President Barack Obama that al-Qaeda is “on the run,” in the African nation of Mali, al-Qaeda linked rebels have gained control in the northern part of the country. Taking advantage of a failed state, they have imposed an extremist version of Sharia law, abolishing basic rights for women, destroying the local culture and building an international terror network.

Just how bad is it? Adam Nossiter, West Africa Bureau Chief for the New York Times, came out of Mali on Wednesday night, and speaking from neighboring Senegal, he painted a grim picture of the situation there.

“It is fair to say that the region controlled by al-Qaeda and its allies is suffering under one of the harshest regimes under the planet,” said Nossiter. “There are public whippings, there are amputations for theft, there has even been an execution by stoning. Women who dare to leave the house without a veil are arrested, and the Islamists are even compiling lists of unmarried pregnant women.” FULL POST

By Mick Krever, CNN

Avraham Burg is many things: an observant Jew, a decorated paratrooper, the former speaker of the Israeli parliament. But over the past decade he has transformed himself into something surprising: a dissident.

“Mine is a call for changing direction,” Burg told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Do we want to be like the Crusades, with high walls and whomever comes to the walls, we shoot them down till eventually this kingdom expires?”

The Arab Spring (or Arab “Awakening,” as he calls it – “spring is too short of a season”) has, Burg says, given an opportunity to Israel to integrate itself in the Arab world. That, he said, is something Israel “never explored.”

Within the state of Israel, Burg thinks that extreme religious views are becoming more powerful than the commitment to democracy. Ultranationalists and militant politicians have hijacked the political narrative, Burg says, and become even more Hawkish than the Israeli military itself.

For the first time in 2,000 years, he said, the Jews and Israel are empowered by an army, an air force, and nuclear weapons – “it’s unbelievable.” But for “too many Israelis,” the military “became the essence rather than just a service to something else. And we've forgot to ask ourselves what is the something else.”

CNN’s Ken Olshansky produced this piece for television.

By Mick Krever, CNN

Fawzia Koofi would like to be the next president of Afghanistan. But that is nearly inconceivable, because Koofi is a woman.

The Taliban has tried to kill her multiple times.  When she travels for her work as a member of Afghanistan’s parliament, she leaves goodbye letters for her two daughters, in the event that she does not return.

“We need to start thinking about changing our mindset,” Koofi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Still there is this wrong understanding of culture and tradition.  But that’s a fight.  One has to take on the risks and go for it.”

Just one in ten Afghan women are literate, though the literacy rate is three times higher than it was in 2001.

And after 11 years of coalition troops in Afghanistan, A woman can still be routinely executed by the Taliban for even the suspicion of associating with a man who is not her husband. FULL POST

How should candidates view Arab Spring?

Foreign policy adviser Robert Kagan and former Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin talk about the Arab Spring.

Candidates agree on Afghanistan plan

Christiane Amanpour and her panel discuss other issues brought up in the final debate, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

By Lucky Gold, CNN

Foreign policy was the subject of Monday’s third and final U.S. presidential debate. Yet, both President Obama and Mitt Romney seemed to offer a strikingly similar attitude toward the most volatile part of the world, the Middle East.

According to James Rubin, former Assistant Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, “the candidates we saw on the stage last night were talking about America receding from the world – ending the war in Iraq, ending the war in Afghanistan. They said the same things that were said about Iraq and Afghanistan when we were at the height of our interest in Iran and Afghanistan.”

Robert Kagan, who has been an advisor to both Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton, joined Rubin on Amanpour and pointed to Syria as another country where both Obama and Romney seem intent on maintaining the status quo, refusing to put “boots on the ground” or order a no-fly zone to protect the rebels fighting the Assad regime.

“I happen to think we do need to take action and go for a no-fly zone,” said Kagan. I think, by the way, that just going in that direction might have a catalytic effect on the Syrian military which I don’t think really feels like having dogfights in the air with American or other forces and it might just be the thing that tips Assad over.”

“There are only two choices in Syria,” said Rubin. “One is a very, very long and bloody civil war ending in something like Beirut. The other choice is a shorter civil war in which the world, led by the United States, provides the forces fighting Assad the capabilities and support they need.” FULL POST