Past Winners

2010 Winner

Michael Barone

Michael Barone is the Senior Political Analyst for The Washington Examiner and Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He is also a syndicated columnist and commentator on U. S. elections and political trends for the Fox News Channel.

Mr. Barone served as law clerk to Judge Wade H. McCree, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1969 to 1971. From 1974 to 1981, he was Vice President of the polling firm Peter D. Hart Research Associates. From 1982 to 1988, Mr. Barone was a member of the editorial page staff of The Washington Post. From 1989 to 1996 and again from 1998 to 2009, he was a Senior Writer for U.S. News and World Report. From 1996 to 1998, Mr. Barone was a Senior Staff Editor at Reader’s Digest.

A leading authority on contemporary American politics, Mr. Barone is the principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, published by National Journal every two years and now in its 20th edition. He is also the author of Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan (1990), The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again (2001), and Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Competition for the Nation’s Future (2004). Mr. Barone’s most recent book is Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America’s Founding Fathers (2007).

As a political journalist and historian, Mr. Barone gives distinctive depth to reporting on American politics. Over the years, he has written for many publications, including the Economist, New York Times, Weekly Standard, National Review, New Republic, American Spectator, Times Literary Supplement, Daily Telegraph, and Sunday Times.

Mr. Barone is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School and was an editor of the Harvard Crimson and Yale Law Journal.

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