BILL SCHNEIDER
Journalist & leading political commentator on elections & politics
Bill Schneider, a leading U.S. political analyst, is Professor of Public and International Affairs and Public Policy at George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow and Resident Scholar at Third Way in Washington, D.C. He is also a contributor to CNN International, Al Jazeera English and Reuters.com. He was the Cable News Network’s senior political analyst from 1990 to 2009.
Schneider has been labeled “the nation's electionmeister”' by The Washington Times and “the Aristotle of American politics”' by The Boston Globe. Campaigns and Elections Magazine called him “the most consistently intelligent analyst on television.”' He was a member of the CNN political team that won an Emmy for its 2006 election coverage and a Peabody for its 2008 coverage.
Schneider received his B.A. from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University, where he subsequently taught in the Department of Government. From 1990 through 1995, he was the Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Visiting Professor of American Politics at Boston College. In 2002, he was the Fred and Rita Richman Distinguished Visiting Professor at Brandeis University. From 2009 to 2012, he was the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. He received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Brandeis University in 2008.
In 2003, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University awarded Schneider its Centennial Medal for contributions to society. In 2001, he received the Julian P. Kanter Award for Excellence in Television from the American Association of Political Consultants. He is also the recipient of the Brandeis University Pride Award and the Alumni Achievement Award.
In 2009, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems presented Schneider with a special award “for his extensive coverage and keen insight of the 2008 United States presidential elections... showcasing democracy in action” to the world.
Bill Schneider is co-author, with Seymour Martin Lipset, of The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor and Government in the Public Mind. He has also written extensively on politics and public opinion for The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, Politico, Reuters and National Journal. He is currently writing a book for Simon & Schuster, Journey to the New America.
Follow him on Twitter @BillSchneiderDC
Speech topics
Dirty Little Secrets of American Politics
Bill Schneider has covered politics for more than four decades – enough time to discover some dirty little secrets. Want to know why it’s so hard for our government to get anything done? Because it was designed not to work. It’s easy to stop things from happening, with our separation of powers and checks and balances. But here’s another dirty little secret: it often does work. It works only when there is a crisis. Is the deficit a real crisis? What about climate change? And what’s going to happen to health care reform?
Is there any hope for ending the gridlock in American government? Four Presidents in a row have promised to bring the country together (Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama). They all failed. What will it take?