This was the last week of The Agenda with Joe Solmonese on our home on XM Live. Starting next Monday, May 5, you’ll be hearing us on XM’s Take Five channel 155 still from 6 – 8 pm eastern every Monday. This week though we still brought you a great dose of politics and some previews of what’s to come with our channel shift.

Leading off the show was Marty Rouse, HRC’s national field director giving us an update on HRC’s activities in this critical presidential election year. From the top of the ticket down to local candidates and ballot measures, HRC is training and activating the GLBT community and our allies in unprecedented ways. Listen in.

Joining us on our new home on Take Five will be a new GLBT business show call “Focus Group.” Hosts John Nash and Tim Bennett are noted business experts and they were our guests to give a preview of their new show.

The Agenda also has a place on XM’s presidential election channel POTUS so we thought it would be fun to take a look at politics through two of their hosts. Joe Mathieu and Rebecca Roberts were our guests to assess what Sen. Clinton’s Pennsylvania win means and how the rest of the democratic race will play out.

We’ve been focusing a lot on the presidential race but there are critical Senate and House races that will decide the future of the Congress. Editor of the must-read political tip sheet The Hotline Amy Walter returned to The Agenda on Monday to give us a lay of the land and focused in on the hot races.
Listen in.

All of this overview talk is great but why talk about candidates when you can talk with them? First we welcomed Betsy Markey, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Colorado. She’s running to unseat Rep. Marilyn Musgrave who is the lead sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment which would enshrine discrimination against GLBT people in the constitution.
Listen in.

Finally, one of the biggest races to watch this year is in New Hampshire. From the state that enacted civil unions for same sex couples last year, former Gov. Jean Shaheen is running to unseat Sen. John Sununu. Listen in.

It’s a critical week in the Democratic presidential nominating process and we had a show chock full of politics last night on The Agenda with Joe Solmonese.

We started out with one of the best political gurus in Washington – Mike Berman. He reads polling numbers like most people read weather reports and he had some great insights on where voters are trending this year and how GLBT issues will or will not play a role. Listen in parts one and two.

The Clinton and Obama campaigns are still fighting it out so we thought it was time again to bring in local supporters of each of the campaigns to make their case for their candidate. First we welcomed Bob Casey (not the Senator but his gay cousin) who is supporting Sen. Obama and then we were joined by Christopher Labonte who supports Sen. Clinton.

To get the inside look at politics in the keystone state we were thrilled to welcome Michael Smerconish – one of the state’s top rated radio talk hosts. He’s heard every morning on CBS Radio’s The Big Talker in Philadelphia and filled us in on the final push for votes. Listen in.

While the Democratic contests have been dominating the news, we didn’t want to forget that there’s another side to this race. We welcomed former White House speechwriter and journalist David Frum to give us the Republican point of view. Listen in.

News, books, politics, entertainment and religion… a great mix on last night’s The Agenda with Joe Solmonese.

We started out the show with some news from Arizona. They became the first state to defeat a constitutional marriage amendment in 2006 but lawmakers have tried to revive the failed idea again this year. State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has been at the forefront of these battles and she was our guest to talk about the discriminatory measure’s status and her thoughts on John McCain. Listen in.

One of the great gay authors on the scene today is Scott Heim whose new book We Disappear was just released. He’s also the author of In Awe and Mysterious Skin that was made into a film in 2005. Heim joined us to talk about the new novel and gay themes in current fiction. Listen in parts one and two.

We set our sights on religion, first with Rev. Kathi Martin of the First Metropolitan Community Church in Atlanta. Rev. Martin participated in an event this morning marking Tax Day in order to point out the disparate treatment faced by same-sex couples. Listen in.

Then with the Pope’s visit to the U.S. this week, we talked to Frank DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministries. His group advocates for gay and lesbian Catholics and last week held a press conference to address concerns about the pontiff’s stances on GLBT issues. Listen in.

The Pennsylvania primary is only a week away and to catch us up on our politics we welcomed Bud Jackson, a veteran campaign and media consultant. Recognized by Campaigns and Elections as a “mover and shaker,” Jackson gave us the electoral landscape and looked at the media blitz leading up to next Tuesday’s primary.

Finally we had a big catch with an interview with pop star Cyndi Lauper. She’s about to kick off her True Colors tour benefiting the Human Rights Campaign and last week she sat down with Joe to talk about the tour and her upcoming album. Listen in.