The national election of 2006 may mark a partial or complete partisan change in the control of Congress. At the same time, incumbents are likely to enjoy a high rate of re-election. Does 2006 mark revitalization of American democracy marked by vigorous electoral competition nationally and in the states? Or is 2006 just a closely fought struggle that may yield a narrow majority for one of the political parties? Join the editors of the new book, The Marketplace of Democracy: Electoral Competition and American Politics along with two leading political analysts to discuss the outcomes and implications of Election 2006.
The panel features John Samples (Director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute); Michael McDonald (Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution); James Pinkerton (Columnist for Newsday); and Lou Jacobson (Deputy Editor at Roll Call).
Bio
Lou Jacobson
Deputy Editor, Roll Call
Michael McDonald
Dr. Michael P. McDonald is Assistant Professor of Government and Politics in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He received a Ph.D. in Political Science from University of California, San Diego and a B.S. in Economics from California Institute of Technology. He held a one-year post-doc fellowship at Harvard University and has previously taught at Vanderbilt University and University of Illinois, Springfield.
James P. Pinkerton
James P. Pinkerton has been a columnist for Newsday since 1993. Prior to that, he worked in the White House under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and also in the 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992 Republican presidential campaigns.
Pinkerton is the author of What Comes Next: The End of Big Government--And the New Paradigm Ahead (Hyperion: 1995). He is also a contributor to the Fox News Channel and a Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington DC. He is a graduate of Stanford University.
John Samples
John Samples directs Cato's Center for Representative Government, which studies campaign finance regulation, delegation of legislative authority, term limits, and the political culture of limited government and the civic virtues necessary for liberty.
He is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining Cato, Samples served eight years as director of Georgetown University Press, and before that, as vice president of the Twentieth Century Fund. He has published scholarly articles in Society, History of Political Thought, and Telos.
Samples has also been featured in mainstream publications like USA Today, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on NPR, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. Samples received his Ph.D. in political science from Rutgers University.