After a long drive in the pouring rain, I arrived at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government unscathed, and I’ll be liveblogging the “Not Just Politics as Usual” forum as it unfolds. Scheduled to speak are Roger Ailes, Paul Begala, Jehmu Greene, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, and Judy Woodruff, with Tom Brokaw moderating and Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger making satellite appearances. The event is in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the founding of George magazine. Should be interesting. Stay tuned…

6:18: Institute of Politics director Jeanne Shaheen announces that Judy Woodruff and Katrina Vanden Heuvel are off the bill — weather problems at Logan Airport. Brokaw, Ailes, Greene and Begala are all here.

6:25: Lots of Kennedys here tonight. Shaheen introduces Sen. Ted Kennedy as the “patron saint” of the KSG.

6:29: Brokaw: Ailes has reinvented TV News in America and succeeded at everything he ever tried except the South Beach diet.

6:31: Jehmu Greene is the woman behind Rock the Vote. In case you were wondering. I was.

6:32: Brokaw: Begala may be the only one here who doesn’t have his TiVO set to Jon Stewart every night.

6:33: Ailes: A lot of people say that entertainment has crept into the news. Actually, the news has crept into entertainment.

6:35: Brokaw keeps asking Ailes if he consciously decided to move Fox to the right in order to capture a right-of-center audience. Ailes isn’t taking the bait. He said of Hannity and Colmes that CNN had Crossfire, and that Fox just did the same thing except the anchors didn’t hate each other. Begala: You didn’t have Novak.

6:41: Clinton: “There was a reaction right-of-center culture, and you saw that in O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter’s books, which I think set up straw men to bash everything people have hated about liberals since the ’70s. But then you have this communitarian culture on the right.” Clinton talks about how Christian communities on the right are a lot like liberals because they donate to charities. ME: I think he’s missing a key difference: giving because you choose to give versus the giving that most liberals prefer, which takes place in the form of higher taxes.

6:45: Brokaw asks Clinton if he is getting up in the morning and practicing saying, “Madame President, can I get you a cup of coffee?” Clinton says that he is taking his wife on a date tonight even though that means missing “Commander in Chief” on television. ME: God help us.

6:49: Brokaw asked what it will take to get young people back into the political process. Jehmu Greene says that she thinks that happened in 2004. ME: Young people did turn out in higher numbers, but so did everyone, so it’s more accurate to say that the youth vote kept the pace with overall turnout. It wasn’t exactly a breakout year for the youth vote, or we would have a different president, right?

6:54: Brokaw asks Begala about the Jon Stewart/Crossfire episode. Begala: It was a ridiculous show. Jon Stewart acted like an ass, Tucker Carlson acted like an ass. But after the cameras were off Jon and I had a really interesting conversation (Tucker was angry and stormed off).

6:56: Ahnuld: I was lucky that I had vocational school in Austria that taught me to be a salesman. I was able to sell bodybuilding, my movies, a policy, or even myself as the next guhvernor of Californeea.

7:00: Ahnuld on bipartisanship: Democrats and Republicans get stuck in traffic.

7:11: Brokaw: Are we at a moment where we’re about to experience a sea change in American politics? Are people tired of the “culture of blame”?

– Begala: No. I think we’re going the other way. Centrist politicians like Ahnuld are going to become more of the exception than the rule. Gerrymandering is a big contributing factor. Some of that is good — I like principled partisan disagreements.

– Greene: I disagree with Paul. I think we’re facing a point where, because of the MoveOns, because of blogs, that people are not going to let things stay the same way. I think they are going to use these tools to change things.

– Ailes: I think the sea change is taking place globally. I think we’re on a short-term course to more divisiveness, but in the end we’re all Americans, and as foreign powers seek to dominate us, we’ll come together as Americans… Right now, millions of men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq are voting, and that’s something that wasn’t possible just a few years ago… Men are pretty reactionary and stupid. Women will have to make the difference in pulling this nation back together again.

7:14: A Harvard student brings up George magazine. I had sort of forgotten that was the point of this forum.

7:15: Ailes on celebrity political activists: Sinatra had a great line — nobody ever paid to hear me talk.

THE END: Sen. Ted Kennedy, recipient of three standing ovations on the night, ended the forum with a teary-eyed tribute to JFK Jr. and George magazine. I’ve shared most of my notes with you here, but I’ll write a brief recap tomorrow when I can find a better connection.