Closing General Session
Wednesday, September 25, 2013, 10:30 a.m.
Mike Murphy Political Consultant and Strategist Los Angeles, Calif.
Mike Murphy is one of the Republican Party's most successful political media consultants. Mike has been called a "media master" by FORTUNE magazine, the GOP's "hottest media consultant" by Newsweek, and the leader of a "new breed" of campaign consultants by Congressional Quarterly. He is also a well-known commentator and analyst in the media. Mike is a contributing editor at TIME magazine, where he writes the widely followed "Murphy's Law" political column. He's a regular roundtable guest on “Meet the Press with David Gregory” and frequently appears on NPR's “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”
During his political career, Mike handled strategy and advertising for more than 26 successful senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns, including the successful gubernatorial races of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, John Engler, Tommy Thompson, Christie Whitman, Dirk Kempthorne, and Terry Branstad as well as the successful senatorial races of Lamar Alexander, Slade Gorton, Spence Abraham, Jeff Sessions, Dirk Kempthorne, Steve Symms, Paul Coverdell, and Larry Pressler. In 2000, Mike served as senior strategist for Sen. John McCain's Presidential campaign. In 2003, he was senior strategist for Arnold Schwarzenegger's historic election as governor of California. He has also advised leaders in five foreign countries.
As a corporate communications strategist, Mike has also assisted many Fortune 500 corporations and leading interest groups. He is a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based Revolution Agency, a leading strategic communications and issue advocacy firm.
Mike was born in Detroit, Mich., and attended the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. In 2001, he was an Institute of Politics fellow at Harvard's JFK School of Government. Mike also works as a writer/producer in the entertainment industry. He lives in Los Angeles.
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Closing General Session
Wednesday, September 25, 2013, 10:30 a.m.
Mark Shields Political Commentator and Columnist Washington, D.C.
The Wall Street Journal has called Mark Shields “the wittiest political analyst around” and “frequently the most trenchant, fair-minded, and thoughtful.” The Washington Post has called Mark “a walking almanac of American politics.” His insights are first-hand and up to the minute, drawn from four decades of knowing, covering, and savoring the country and its politics.
A nationally known columnist and commentator, Mark has worked in Washington through the administrations of nine U.S. presidents. He was an editorial writer for The Washington Post, where he began writing his column in 1979. That column is now distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate.
Since 1988, Mark has provided weekly political analysis and commentary on national campaigns for the award-winning PBS “NewsHour,” where he has matched wits with David Gergen, The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot, and most recently with David Brooks of The New York Times. For 17 years, Mark was moderator and panelist on CNN’s “Capital Gang.” He now is a regular panelist on “Inside Washington,” the weekly public affairs show, which is seen on both ABC and PBS.
A native of Weymouth, Mass., and a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Mark served as an enlisted man in the United States Marine Corps before coming to Washington, where he began working in 1965 for Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire. In 1968, Mark went to work for Robert F. Kennedy in the New York senator’s presidential campaign. He later held leadership positions in three other presidential campaigns. For more than 11 years, Shields helped manage campaigns from the courthouse to the White House in 38 states.
In addition to attending 21 national party conventions and working on or covering the last 11 presidential elections, Mark has taught American politics and the press at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Public Policy and he was a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy Institute of Politics. “On the Campaign Trail,” his book about the 1984 presidential campaign, has been praised as “funny,” “irreverent,” and “for bringing that race to a magnificent light.”