Renowned Political Writers Cramer and Bai Kick Off WC’s Lecture Series on U.S. Elections Sept. 18

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Two of America’s premier political reporters will kick off a four-part lecture series, “The Anatomy of an Election,” at Washington College on Tuesday, September 18. 

Matt Bai, author, columnist and chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, and Richard Ben Cramer, author of What It Takes: The Way to the White House, widely acclaimed as one of the best books ever written on presidential politics, will talk about the 2012 election, American politics and the kinds of people it attracts.

The event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 5:30 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue, in Chestertown.

Matt Bai covers politics for the
New York Times Magazine.

Bai has spent the past decade writing about politics for the Times, where he covered both the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns and is now covering the 2012 contest. He also writes the “Political Times” column for the Times politics and government blog, The Caucus. His critically acclaimed book The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics (Penguin, 2007) was named a Times Notable Book of the Year. He is currently working on a book about the failed era of boomer politics.

Cramer learned his politics as a cub reporter for The Baltimore Sun.  His newspaper career later carried him to the Middle East for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Subsequently, he became a magazine reporter, a bestselling author, a writer of TV documentaries and a resident of Chestertown.

Richard Ben Cramer wrote
the book on what it takes
to run for U.S. president.

“We are very excited to launch this election-season series with two great political journalists,” says Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, which is co-sponsoring the series with the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs. “Matt Bai’s reporting is deeper, more timeless and, ultimately, much more informative than the common run of political news. And Richard Ben Cramer wrote the book that inspired Bai and an entire generation of young reporters to make politics their subject.”

The series continues Oct. 2 with Sasha Issenberg, a columnist for Slate and Washington correspondent for Monocle who covered the 2008 election for The Boston Globe. Issenberg will talk about his new book, The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns (Crown, 2012), which shows us the hidden persuaders behind the roller coaster that is the election news cycle.

On Oct. 16, Trevor Potter, the former chair of the Federal Election Commission who has been described by the American Bar Association Journal as “hands-down one of the top lawyers in the country on the delicate intersection of politics, law and money,” will talk about campaign finance. General counsel to John McCain’s 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns, he is the founding president and general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, which defends and enforces campaign finance, election and ethics laws.

The series concludes on Oct. 23 with Washington College alumnus Jack Bohrer ’06, who has written about politics for many publications, including The New Republic and Salon, along with Betsy Fischer, longtime executive producer of Meet the Press, and veteran political reporters James Hohmann and Jonathan Martin of Politico, talking about “Media and Personalities” in the presidential campaign.

Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. For more information, www.washcoll.edu.

The College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is dedicated to fostering innovative approaches to the American past and present. Through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach, and a special focus on written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between the academic world and the public at large. For more information on the Center, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

The Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs was established at the College in 1990 to encourage students to enter public service by introducing them to exemplary leaders, both in and out of government. The Goldstein Program sponsors lectures, symposia and visiting fellows, student participation in models and conferences, and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders experienced in developing public policy. For more information, visit http://academics.washcoll.edu/goldsteinprogram/.

'The Great Horse Race': Expert Panel to Discuss Presidential Campaign

Chestertown, MD — With the most exciting Presidential election in recent memory just weeks away, three legendary figures from the arena of presidential politics are ducking out of the fray for a rare public appearance here in Chestertown.

On Tuesday, Sept. 23, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and author Richard Ben Cramer will host "The Great Horse-Race: Talking Presidential Politics" with campaign gurus Mike Murphy and Joe Trippi, at the historic Prince Theatre in downtown Chestertown. The event, which begins at 5 p.m., is sponsored by Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

Cramer is the author of What It Takes: The Way to the White House, widely considered one of the best books on American presidential politics ever written. A 1,000-page Homeric tale of the 1988 political race (it took Cramer six years to research and write it), What It Takesrenders unforgettable six candidates—Bob Dole, Joe Biden, Michael Dukakis, Dick Gephardt, Gary Hart and the senior George Bush—and their epic quests (which began, in this telling, the moment they were born) for the Presidency.

A prominent Republican analyst in the current presidential race (you can see him almost every day on MSNBC), Mike Murphy was Bob Dole's advisor in 1988. But Murphy has also been the architect of more than 26 successful gubernatorial and senatorial contests, including the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California. He has worked for Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Tommy Thompson and Lamar Alexander, and was chief strategist for John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. The Boston Globe once described him as "an uproarious character [who] calls politics 'a weird kind of show business.'"

Murphy writes frequently for The Weekly Standard and National Public Radio, has been a Harvard fellow and is a founding partner at the Washington-based public policy management firm DC Navigators. He lives in Los Angeles, where he also works as a writer and producer in another "weird kind of show business"—the Hollywood entertainment industry.

CBS News Consultant Joe Trippi was a senior advisor to John Edwards before Edwards dropped out of the race last year, and he was Dick Gephardt's strategist in 1988. But Trippi is best known for his extraordinary work on Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, when The New Republic touted him on its cover as "The Man Who Reinvented Campaigning." His book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet and the Overthrow of Everythingdetails his groundbreaking use of the Internet, not just to raise record amounts of money and disseminate his candidate's message, but to actually foment and organize a national grassroots political movement. He has worked on the presidential campaigns of Edward M. Kennedy, Walter Mondale and Gary Hart. Another former Harvard fellow, he is a prolific blogger and heads the Washington, D.C., political consulting firm, Trippi & Associates. He lives in Easton, Md.

"In my experience, Mike Murphy and Joe Trippi are the two most brilliant political operatives working today, distinguished for their lucidity and candor," says Cramer. "Also, they happen to be very funny."

About the C.V. Starr Center

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience explores our nation's history—and particularly the legacy of its Founding era—in innovative ways. Through educational programs, scholarship, and public outreach, and especially by supporting and fostering the art of written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between past and present, and between the academic world and the public at large. From its base in the circa-1746 Custom House along Chestertown's colonial waterfront, the Center also serves as a portal onto a world of opportunities for Washington College students. Its guiding principle is that now more than ever, a wider understanding of our shared past is fundamental to the continuing success of America's democratic experiment. For more information on the Center and on the Patrick Henry Fellowship, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

September 5, 2008

Author Richard Ben Cramer to Speak at Convocation

Chestertown, MD, February 16, 2001 — Washington College will honor Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ben Cramer at the annual George Washington's Birthday Convocation on Saturday, February 17, 2001 at 2:00 p.m. in the College's Gibson Performing Arts Center, Tawes Theatre. Cramer will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters from the College.

Author of the recent best-selling biography Joe Dimaggio: The Hero's Life (Simon & Schuster, 2000), Cramer is a dogged journalist whose writing is as incisive as it is empathetic. Born in Rochester, NY, he studied journalism at Johns Hopkins and Columbia University before taking his first job with the (Baltimore) Sun in 1971. In 1976, Cramer went to work for The Philadelphia Inquirer, becoming an overseas correspondent and earning the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Middle East and Arab-Israeli conflict. Since 1984, Cramer has worked as a freelance writer and researcher probing America's cultural icons and political life. His 1992 bestseller, What It Takes: The Way to the White House, has been hailed by critics as the best book ever written on American politics.

The George Washington's Birthday Convocation is held annually in February to honor Washington College's founding patron. This year's event will open with an invocation and benediction by Dr. Gary Schiff, an avocational Hebrew cantor and lecturer in the College's Department of Philosophy and Religion. The ceremony also will honor students inducted into the Omicron Delta Kappa national honor society. A reception and book signing will be held in the Tawes Gallery immediately following the Convocation. The event is free and open to the public. For further information call 410-778-7849.