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When you consider how carefully staged and planned the debates are and how long they've been around, it's remarkable how often candidates manage to screw them up. Sometimes they're undone by a simple gaffe or an ill-conceived bit of stagecraft, like Gerald Ford's slip-up about Soviet domination of eastern Europe in 1976, or Al Gore's histrionic sighing in 2000. Sometimes it's just a sign of a candidate having a bad day, like Ronald Reagan's woolly ramblings in the first debate with Walter Mondale in 1984.

Many parents raise kids who are loud and proud of their heritage. But some have a different approach. Writer Alina Adams is Jewish and her husband is African-American. She says that in some situations, her kids are better off hiding their race and religion. Adams speaks with host Michel Martin.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, we'll talk to a woman about the high price of friendship. Well, one friendship anyway. She cosigned a loan for a friend who was struggling. Now she is struggling with the consequences. We'll have more on that and we'll also tell you some things you might want to think about to protect your own credit score. That's in just a few minutes.

Affirmative action is back before the U.S. Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the justices hear arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Abigail Fisher says she was denied admission to the school four years ago because she's white. Host Michel Martin discusses the upcoming arguments with Associated Press reporter Justin Pope.