James Carville

LBC-213 Kendall Cram Lecture Hall

Date: April 19, 2007

5:00 PM Speech and Q&A, 6:00 PM Reception

James Carville Looks at American Politics

James Carville presents a timely and provocative view of Washington politics, spiced with his own unique brand of optimism and humor.

All’s Fair: Love, War and Politics

In this highly popular joint presentation, Washington's best-loved couple - James Carville and Mary Matalin - gives audiences an enlightening and entertaining look at today's most important political issues as well as a behind-the-scenes look at Washington politics. Co-authors of the national best seller All's Fair: Love, War, and Running for President, both Matalin and Carville are key players on the national political stage, having between them worked for every president over the last 25 years. In this presentation, Carville and Matalin combine their unique experience as perennial political insiders to provide audiences with a stimulating, candid and provocative analysis of the day's headlines and today's hot-button political issues from both sides of the political aisle for a lively and engaging exchange of views.

About James Carville

One of the most recognizable figures in politics, James Carville is a liberal iconoclast who scopes the political landscape with his signature energy and humor.

One-of-a-Kind: There’s nobody in politics like James Carville. Offering bombastic, enthusiastic, shoot-from-the-hip, no-holds-barred political commentary combined with a quick wit and a Southern drawl, the “Ragin’ Cajun” is instantly recognizable through his frequent appearances on CNN’s political news programming. Carville never disappoints, providing viewers and audiences with lively political debate and his undeniable political savvy.

Political Strategist: The man who devised the most dramatic political victories of our generation, Carville has managed more campaigns than any political consultant in America and around the world. Captured in action in The War Room, the compelling, Academy Award-nominated documentary about President Clinton’s presidential campaign, Carville knows precisely how to craft a winning strategy. Carville was a fixture on CNN’s groundbreaking Crossfire for many years, providing commentary and insight on the day’s political headlines.

Best-Selling Author, Cultural Icon: His latest book, Take it Back, is a handbook for taking back Congress, the White House and the country. In Buck Up, Suck Up and Come Back When You Foul Up, Carville offers enlightening behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the campaign trail. He is also author of Stickin’: The Case for Loyalty and All’s Fair, written with his wife and favorite debate partner, Mary Matalin. Carville’s become a pop culture icon, co-producing the movie remake of All The King's Men and spoofing his own well-recognized persona on television and in such films as Old School.

Walter Isaacson

LBC-213 Kendall Cram Lecture Hall

Thursday March 15, 2007

1:00 PM Speech, 2:00 PM Reception

Walter Isaacson is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of Time Magazine. He is the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) and of Kissinger: A Biography (1992) and is the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986). He is currently writing a biography of Albert Einstein due to be published in April 2007.

Isaacson was born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans. He is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

He began his career at the Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune/States-Item. He joined Time Magazine in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor and editor of new media before becoming the magazine's 14th managing editor in 1996. He became Chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.

He was appointed after Hurricane Katrina to be the vice-chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. He is on the Board of Directors of United Airlines, Tulane University, the National Constitution Center, and he is chairman of the board of Teach for America.

He lives with his wife and daughter in Washington, DC.

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/site/c.huLWJeMRKpH/b.2253415/k.5A1D/About_Walter_Isaacson.htm

The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. Through seminars, policy programs, conferences and leadership development initiatives, the Institute and its international partners seek to promote nonpartisan inquiry and an appreciation for timeless values. The Institute is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has campuses in Aspen, Colorado, and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Its international network includes partner Aspen Institutes in Berlin, Rome, Lyon, Tokyo, New Delhi, and Bucharest, and leadership programs in Africa, Central America and India.

Michael Lewis

Freeman Auditorium in Woldenberg Art Center

Thursday March 29, 2007

6:00 Interview and Q&A, 7:00 Reception

A shrewd observer of politics, finance and the American scene, Michael Lewis combines keen insight with a signature sense of humor in becoming one of today's leading social commentators. Taking his second dive into the world of professional sports with "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game" (W.W. Norton, 2006), Lewis delves into the substructure of football and, specifically, the less-heralded linemen who are overshadowed by society's fascination with point-scorers.

"Combining a tour de force of sports analysis with a piquant ethnography of the South's pigskin mania, Lewis probes the fascinating question of whether football is a matter of brute force or subtle intellect.

--Publishers Weekly

"The Blind Side" comes on the heels of Lewis' 2003 release "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game." Providing an unprecedented look behind the scenes of a Major League Baseball franchise, this New York Times best seller details the effect that an innovative personnel approach has had in allowing the small-budget Oakland Athletics to consistently rank among baseball's best. In an era of $200 million payrolls, the A's of general manager Billy Beane have made an annual habit of defying conventional wisdom in posting one of the top records in baseball--often with a payroll one-quarter the size of MLB's high-salary rosters.

"There are several insights at the heart of the A's system that I think are wonderful for baseball: One, that it's a team game; that no one player is going to make that much of a difference to your team. So for God's sake, don't go blow a quarter of your budget on one guy."

From the dugouts and locker rooms to ownership boardrooms, Lewis' brilliant and irreverent presentation reveals the revolutionary principles used by the A's to win a game that can cripple baseball's richest (and sometimes foolish) franchises. In "Moneyball," he draws on his unique knowledge of money, science, entertainment and ego to illustrate the strategies employed by a club gleaning lessons from corporate America.

"It's a patently unfair game that $40 million plays against $120 million. It violates all of our notions of fairness that money is one of the determining factors in the outcome of a sporting contest."

In 1989, Lewis first made a name for himself with the chart-topping "Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage of Wall Street," an inside look at his career as a bond trader that best-selling author Tom Wolfe labeled "the funniest book on Wall Street I've ever read" and earned Lewis the label of "America's poet laureate of capital" from The Los Angeles Times. "Liar's Poker" spent 62 weeks on the NYT best-seller list and remains one of the signature books of the 1980s.

"There are enough books in the world....The minute you write books because you need the income--[rather than] because you think you have a good subject--you should just stop."

On the heels of "Liar's Poker," Lewis traversed the 1980s' get-rich-quick jungle with "The Money Culture" (Penguin, 1992); chronicled the 1996 presidential campaign in "Losers: The Road to Everyplace But the White House"; crafted a 20-week NYT best seller in 2001 with "The New, New Thing" ("The book that does for Silicon Valley what 'Liar's Poker' did for Wall Street"); explored the internet boom in "Next: The Future Just Happened" (2002); and revealed life lessons learned on the baseball diamond in "Coach" (2005).

At a Glance: A native of New Orleans, Michael Lewis graduated from Princeton University with a degree in art history and earned a master's at The London School of Economics. Prior to his career as an author, he worked with New York art dealer Wildenstein, and with Salomon Brothers both on Wall Street and in London. He lives in Berkeley with his wife, Tabitha Soren and three children.