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Join us April 15-16, 2023 to hear from a political strategist and an expert on U.S. elections and political trends
We are thrilled to announce two dynamic keynote speakers who will inspire audiences with thought-provoking discussions on topics regarding the current U.S. political landscape.
ABC News contributor and veteran political strategist Donna Brazile is the former interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee. She became the first African American woman to serve as the manager of a major party presidential campaign, running the campaign of former Vice President Al Gore. She is the author of the 2004 best-selling memoir “Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics” and the 2017 New York Times Bestseller “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-Ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump In The White House.” She is a co-author of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics, which won the 2019 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Nonfiction. Ms. Brazile is a contributor to the recently published 400 Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019.
Brazile has lectured at over 225 colleges and universities across the country. In 2013, Ms. Brazile was appointed by President Obama to serve on the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Brazile has served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University since 2002 and spent the fall of 2017 serving as a Joan Shorenstein fellow in Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is currently the Gwendolyn S. and Colbert I. King Endowed Chair in Public Policy at Howard University.
She is the proud recipient of more than ten honorary doctorate degrees from major colleges and universities, including her alma mater Louisiana State University. In October 2017, Ms. Brazile was the recipient of the W.E.B Du Bois Medal, Harvard’s highest honor in African American studies. Ms. Brazile was the recipient of a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Daytime Program, Good Morning America (2016-2017) in connection with her work with ABC and she was a member of the Peabody Award-winning “Best Political Team on Television” on CNN during the 2008 election cycle.
Donna Brazile will be speaking on “Presidential Politics: What Happened to ‘We the People?’ and The Shifting American Political Landscape.”
Charlie Cook is widely regarded as one of the nation’s leading authorities on U.S. elections and political trends. He founded the independent, nonpartisan Cook Political Report in 1984, serving as Editor and Publisher for 37 years, stepping down in 2021 and transitioning ownership and management of the venerable newsletter to Amy Walter. Mr. Cook remains with the renamed Cook Political Report with Amy Walter as a contributor.
In addition to lecturing, Mr. Cook continues to write his weekly column for National Journal, while also serving as a political analyst for the publication. He is also a co-author of the 2020 and 2022 editions of The Almanac of American Politics.
Covering and analyzing U.S. elections and domestic political trends, The New York Times once referred to Cook Political Report as “a newsletter that both parties regard as authoritative” while CBS News’ Bob Schieffer called it “the bible of the political community”. Al Hunt, in the Wall Street Journal, referred to Cook as “the Picasso of election analysis.” The late David Broder of The Washington Post, long considered “the Dean of the Washington political press corps,” once wrote that Charlie Cook is “perhaps the best non-partisan tracker of Congressional races.”
In 2010, Mr. Cook was the co-recipient of the American Political Science Association’s prestigious Carey McWilliams award to honor “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.”
Charlie Cook will be speaking on the current political landscape.