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Michael Barone is a Fox News Channel contributor and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. He is Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
Michael Barone was formerly a senior writer with U.S. News & World Report. He grew up in Detroit and Birmingham, Mich. He graduated from Harvard College (1966) and Yale Law School (1969), and was an editor of the Harvard Crimson and the Yale Law Journal.
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 of Peter D. Hart Research Associates. From 1981 to 1988, he was a member of the editorial page staff of The Washington Post. From 1996 to 1998, he was senior staff editor at Reader's Digest.
Barone is the principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, published by National Journal every two years. The first edition appeared in 1971, and the 17th edition, The Almanac of American Politics 2004, appeared in July 2003. He is also the author of Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan (Free Press, 1990), The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again (Regnery, 2001) and the just-released Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Competition for the Nation's Future (Crown Forum, May 2004).
Over the years, Barone has written for many publications, including The Economist, The New York Times, The Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, National Review, The American Spectator, American Enterprise, The Times Literary Supplement and The Daily Telegraph of London. He is a contributor to the Fox News Channel and has appeared on many other television programs.
Barone lives in Washington, D.C. He has traveled to all 50 states and all 435 congressional districts. He has also traveled to 37 foreign countries and has reported on recent elections in Russia, Mexico, Italy and Britain.
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Michael Barone (May 21, 2012)
In the run-up to this weekend's G-8 summit at Camp David, journalists have unfavorably compared European "austerity" with Barack Obama's economic policies.
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Michael Barone (May 17, 2012)
Is it panic time at Obama headquarters in Chicago? You might get that impression from watching events -- and the polls -- over the past few weeks.In matchups against Mitt... more
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Michael Barone (May 14, 2012)
Last week, I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked like a long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states, much like... more
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Michael Barone (May 10, 2012)
Just as the political air is filled with talk of the inevitability of Barack Obama's re-election -- we are told that the kids at his Chicago headquarters are brimming with... more
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Michael Barone (May 07, 2012)
Washington Post editorial writer and liberal blogger Jonathan Capehart is puzzled. Why does the "non-issue" of Harvard Law professor and Democratic Senate... more
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Michael Barone (May 03, 2012)
It has been reported that the Obama campaign this year, as in 2008, has disabled or chosen not to use AVS in screening contributions made by credit card.That doesn't sound... more
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Michael Barone (Apr 30, 2012)
Last week, Barack Obama delivered speeches at universities in Chapel Hill, N.C., Iowa City, Iowa, and Boulder, Colo. The trip was, press secretary Jay Carney assured us,... more
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Michael Barone (Apr 26, 2012)
The illegal immigration problem is going away. That's the conclusion I draw from the latest report of the Pew Hispanic Center on Mexican immigration to the United States.... more
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Michael Barone (Apr 23, 2012)
I don't know how many times I've seen liberal commentators look back with nostalgia to the days when a young man fresh out of high school or military service could... more
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Michael Barone (Apr 19, 2012)
Some 20 million Americans in primaries and caucuses will take part in selecting the Republican presidential nominee. One person will choose the vice presidential... more
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Michael Barone (Apr 16, 2012)
How much will Obamacare -- call it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act if you like -- cost over the next 10 years?
More than you've been led to believe,... more
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Michael Barone (Apr 12, 2012)
Now that Rick Santorum has "suspended" his campaign, we can stop pretending and can say what has been clear for weeks: Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for... more
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Michael Barone (Apr 09, 2012)
Time for a postmortem on the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Yes, I know Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are still out there saying interesting things. And that... more
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Michael Barone (Apr 05, 2012)
How many times have you heard Barack Obama talk about "investing" in education? Quite a few, if you've been listening to the president at all.
In fact, Americans have been... more
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Michael Barone (Apr 02, 2012)
"I don't worry about the Constitution," said Rep. Phil Hare, Democrat of Illinois, at a town hall meeting where voters questioned his support of the... more
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Michael Barone (Mar 29, 2012)
"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
So said John Kerry, in Huntington, W.V., on Tuesday, March 16, 2004, two weeks after he had clinched... more
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Michael Barone (Mar 26, 2012)
President Barack Obama's 17-minute video, "The Road We've Traveled," gives us an idea of how he wants to frame the issues in the fall election.
The... more
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Michael Barone (Mar 22, 2012)
As I listened to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan describe his latest budget plan in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute this week, I couldn't help... more
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Michael Barone (Mar 19, 2012)
The 2012 congressional redistricting cycle following the 2010 Census is just about over and done with. And it seems likely to make much less difference than many of us... more
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Michael Barone (Mar 15, 2012)
You can almost hear the note of surprise in their voices when you read the Washington Post and New York Times reporters' stories on their papers' latest political... more
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Michael Barone (Mar 10, 2012)
In the cold, gray numbers of election returns and exit poll percentages, a reader with some imagination can find clues to people's deep feelings, their hopes and... more
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Michael Barone (Mar 08, 2012)
Kicking the can down the road. That's been the Obama administration's response on issues from Iran's nuclear weapons program to America's entitlement systems.
Start with... more
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Michael Barone (Mar 05, 2012)
Few social scientists, and even fewer political scientists, have done as much to improve American life as James Q. Wilson, who died last week at age 80.
His name is... more
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Michael Barone (Mar 01, 2012)
I have long been puzzled by the enthusiasm with which many young liberal bloggers cheer on proposals to raise tax rates on high earners. I can understand why they might favor... more
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Michael Barone (Feb 27, 2012)
If you were listening reasonably carefully to last Wednesday's Republican presidential candidate debate, you heard Rick Santorum say, "Charles Murray... more
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Michael Barone (Feb 23, 2012)
A candidate's strengths can also be his weaknesses. Take the case of Rick Santorum.
One of his strengths is perseverance. For more than a year, he made hundreds of... more
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Michael Barone (Feb 20, 2012)
Many Republican House members, and the bloggers and tea partiers who cheered their victory in gaining a majority in November 2010, seem to be seething with discontent and... more
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Michael Barone (Feb 16, 2012)
Believers in central planning should take a look at Washington's Metro rail transit system. While they will find many things to like, they will also see examples of how... more
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Michael Barone (Feb 13, 2012)
Rick Santorum won big victories in three small contests in the Republican presidential race last Tuesday. In doing so, he reshaped the oft-reshaped nomination battle once... more
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Michael Barone (Feb 09, 2012)
The Republican presidential candidates, except for Ron Paul, haven't been paying much attention to young voters in the primaries and caucuses so far. But any Republican... more
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Michael Barone (Feb 06, 2012)
It's unusual when a reporter sympathetic to a politician writes a story that makes his subject look bad. But Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker has now done this... more
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Michael Barone (Feb 02, 2012)
Mitt Romney's impressive victory Tuesday makes it very likely that we will look back on the Florida primary as the contest that determined the 2012 Republican... more
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Michael Barone (Jan 30, 2012)
We got mixed signals from a turbulent political week.
Barack Obama seems to be enjoying an uptick in polls -- up toward, but not quite at, 50 percent approval.... more
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Michael Barone (Jan 26, 2012)
You know politicians are serious when they move from campaigning to governing. Something like that may be happening on the Republican campaign trail -- but, unfortunately,... more
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Michael Barone (Jan 23, 2012)
Those who take a certain pleasure in denouncing the evils negative political advertising should have spent the last week in South Carolina. They could have plunked down in... more
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Michael Barone (Jan 19, 2012)
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- The crowd at the Fox News/Wall Street Journal debate in Myrtle Beach was feisty, with whoops and cheers for Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum... more
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Michael Barone (Jan 16, 2012)
Of course President Obama is not concentrating on campaigning, White House press spokesmen assured us -- as the president headed off to Chicago for three fundraisers and a... more
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Michael Barone (Jan 12, 2012)
To win just under 40 percent of the vote in a primary with five active candidates is pretty impressive, even for a candidate like Mitt Romney, who started off with... more
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Michael Barone (Jan 09, 2012)
A presidential campaign exposes candidates' strengths and weaknesses. The strengths they're eager to tell you about. So let's look at the weaknesses.
Start... more
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Michael Barone (Jan 05, 2012)
Elections are contests held during a moment in time between candidates who have records stretching back, often far back, into the past. So there is always a tension between... more
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Michael Barone (Jan 02, 2012)
Election year has finally arrived, well after the beginning of a turbulent and unpredictable elections season, and voting begins on Tuesday in the Iowa Republicans... more