Morning Panel

Featured Speaker:
Karl Rove is the senior advisor and assistant the President George W. Bush. Mr. Rove oversees the strategic planning, political affairs, and public liaison efforts of the White House. He previously served as chief strategist for the Bush for President Campaign and for 18 years before that, president of Karl Rove & Company, an Austin, Texas-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, non-partisan causes, and non-profit groups. His clients have included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden. The Colorado native attended the University of Utah, the University of Texas at Austin and George Mason University. He has taught at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and in the Journalism Department at the University of Texas at Austin and was also faculty member at the Salzburg Seminar. He was a member of the Board of International Broadcasting, which oversaw operations of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, and served on the board of the McDonald Observatory before entering government.

Moderators:
Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI. He also serves as an election analyst for CBS News. Mr. Ornstein writes regularly for USA Today as a member of its Board of Contributors and writes a column called "Congress Inside Out" for Roll Call. He is codirector of the Transition to Governing Project and also serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Commission on the Future International Financial Architecture. He appears often on television programs such as Nightline, Today, Face the Nation, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He writes frequently for the New York Times, Washington Post, and other major newspapers and magazines. His books include The Permanent Campaign and Its Future (2000), with Thomas Mann; Vital Statistics on Congress, 1999-2000, with Thomas Mann and Michael Malbin (1999); and Intensive Care: How Congress Shapes Health Policy (1995), with Thomas Mann.

Thomas Mann is the W. Averell Harriman Senior Fellow in American Governance at the Brookings Institution. He is codirector of the Transition to Governing Project and is also currently involved with several other projects, including Comparative Perspectives on Money and Politics: Lessons for the U.S. and The Future of Internet Voting. Mr. Mann served as the director of governmental studies at Brookings and is the former executive director of the American Political Science Association. His books include The Permanent Campaign and Its Future (2000), with Norman Ornstein; Vital Statistics on Congress, 1999-2000, with Norman Ornstein and Michael Malbin (1999); and Campaign Finance Reform: A Sourcebook, with Anthony Corrado, Daniel R. Ortiz, Trevor Potter, and Frank J. Sorauf, editors (1997, revised edition forthcoming).

Luncheon Panel: The Bush Transition to the Presidency: Planning and Implementation

Speaker:
Clay Johnson III is the assistant to the President for presidential personnel and deputy to the chief of staff. He was the executive director for the Bush-Cheney transition. Mr. Johnson served as the chief of staff to Governor Bush in Texas from June of 1999 until November of 2000; prior to this position he had served as Bush’s appointments director for four years. Before moving to Austin, Clay Johnson served as the chief operating officer of the Dallas Museum of Art, was the president of the Horchow Collection for eight years and Neiman Marcus Mail Order Company for three years. He has also worked for Citicorp and PepsiCo. Mr. Johnson received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his masters degree from MIT business school.

Panelists:
Mark D. Gearan is the President of the Hobart and William Smith Colleges. When named president of Hobart and William Smith in the summer of 1999 by the Colleges’ Board of Trustees, Mr. Gearan was serving as director of the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C., a post he assumed in 1995. Prior to his Peace Corps directorship, Mr. Gearan had served at the White House as assistant to the President and director of communications, as well as deputy chief of staff. During the 1992 presidential campaign, he was Vice-President Gore’s campaign manager and then deputy director of President-elect Clinton’s transition team. His writings have been published extensively, including pieces in the Boston Globe, the Miami Herald, and the San Francisco Examiner. Currently, Mr. Gearan serves on the board of directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which engages Americans of all backgrounds in community-based service through such programs as Americorps and Service Corps. Additionally, he serves as co-chair of the New York Campus Compact Executive Committee, an organization of college presidents who are committed to the goals of public service, civic engagement, and service learning. He is also a member of the Independent College Fund of New York.

C. Boyden Gray is a partner at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering. From 1989 to 1993, he served as director of the Office of Transition Counsel for the Bush transition team and as White House counsel to President Bush. Mr. Gray originally joined Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering in 1969 and became a partner in 1976. In 1981, he left the firm to serve as legal counsel to Vice President Bush, returning to the firm in 1993. Mr. Gray also served as counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, chaired by Vice President Bush. Currently, Mr. Gray serves as chairman of Citizens for a Sound Economy. In addition, he is a member of Harvard University's Committee on University Development and Committee to Visit the College and president of the Board of Trustees of St. Mark's School. Mr. Gray is the recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal and the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the University of North Carolina Law School.

Carl Leubsdorf has been Washington bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News since 1981. He also serves as assistant managing editor. At the Morning News, he has written about the White House and national politics. Mr. Leubsdorf has also been a correspondent for the Washington bureau of the Baltimore Sun and a correspondent for the Associated Press. He co-hosted a weekly public affairs television program, "Capital Conversation."

Roy Neel was responsible for the transition planning effort of the Gore campaign. He served as the president and chief executive officer of the United States Telecom Association. Previously, he served as the President's Deputy Chief of Staff responsible for day-to-day management of the White House. Neel first moved to the White House to serve as Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore, charged with building and integrating the Office of The Vice President into the new administration. He was also Chief of Staff for the Vice Presidential campaign, managing the staff of communications, policy and scheduling aides. Additionally, during Gore's sixteen-year service in the United States Senate and House of Representatives, Neel was Legislative Director (1977-87) and Chief of Staff (1987-93).

Moderator:
John C. Fortier is the project manager of the Transition to Governing Project and is a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute. Fortier is a political scientist. HE has taught at Boston College, Harvard University, and the University of Delaware. Prior to coming to AEI, he was a research associate at the Worcester Municipal Research Bureau in Massachusetts. He has published articles in the Review of Politics, PS, State Legislatures Magazine, The New York Time, TechCentralStation, the Newark Star Ledger, and the Washington Times. Fortier has provided commentary for BBC radio and television, Newsweek On Air, Hearst-Argyle television, Medill News Service television, Danish television, Dutch radio, WBUR radio (NPR Boston), and the Catholic Radio Network. He holds B.A. from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. from Boston College.

Afternoon Panel: The Bush Presidency: Before and After September 11

A Reporters Roundtable:
David Brooks is a senior editor of the Weekly Standard, contributing editor at Newsweek, and a commentator on National Public Radio. Brooks joined the Standard at its inception in August 1995, after working at the Wall Street Journal. His posts at the Journal included op-ed editor; European correspondent for the editorial page covering Russia, the Middle East, South Africa, and European affairs; editor of the book review section; and movie critic. He is the author of Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, published by Simon & Schuster in 2000.

E. J. Dionne, Jr. is a columnist for the Washington Post and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was a reporter and editorial writer for the Post. He also served as a correspondent for the New York Times in Paris, Rome, and Beirut. He is the author of the widely read book, Why Americans Hate Politics, published by Simon & Schuster in 1991.

Richard Reeves is a writer and syndicated columnist who has made a number of award-winning documentary films. His ninth book, President Kennedy: Profile of Power, now considered the authoritative work on the 35th president, won several national awards and was named the Best Non-Fiction Book of 1993 by Time and Book of the Year by Washington Monthly. His twice-weekly column has appeared since 1979 in more than 100 newspapers. He is a former chief political correspondent for The New York Times and has written extensively for numerous magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire and New York. He is a visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and the former Regents Professor of Political Science at UCLA.

Carla Anne Robbins covers foreign policy for the Wall Street Journal. Ms. Robbins has also worked as a foreign correspondent in Central and South America and covered the Gulf Crisis from Saudi Arabia. A graduate of Wellesley College, she holds a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in political science. She is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club award and has shared two Pulitzer prizes at the Journal.