From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

Why don't the national candidates campaign in the cities?

Hello again, I'm Warren Alney, and this is To the Poet from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues Americans care about most. Tonight's vice presidential debate will dramatize a political pattern. The parties have

not contested the cities for years. Paul Ryan epitomizes the ideal of small-town conservatism. Joe Biden

comes from hard-scrabble, blue-collar Scranton PA. Has the national GOP given up on the cities?

Is there good reason since the suburbs are where the populations are growing fastest? And what about

those few big city Republican mayors? Does their success indicate that their party is missing

what could be a decisive contingent of voters? On reporters's notebook later on, the decline and fall of Lance Armstrong.

First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from the members of KCRW and from the Public Radio International Program Fund.

Hello again, Mormon Al-Nayback with To the Poit.

Even many Republicans concede that the GOP has given up on the cities, concentrating instead on the faster-growing suburbs. But will turning away from the urban centers mean political costs in the future? What could the party learn from its few big city mayors? On reporter's notebook, Lance Armstrong, the American hero whose reputation has been destroyed

by damning and persuasive evidence.

First, this news update, the prospect of regional conflict in the Middle East has been raised

again by Turkey's interception of a Syrian passenger plane flying from Moscow to Damascus.

Russia today demanded an explanation.

Liz Sly of the Washington Post is reporting the story from

Beirut, Lebanon. We have lost her for a moment. We are trying to get her back. In the meantime,

Russia once again has demanded an explanation from Turkey for why it intercepted this Syrian plane.

It was a passenger plane, once again, flying from Moscow to

Damascus, and it's the latest instance of Turkish and Syrian tensions related to the bloody

...