Michael Barone (pundit)

Barone was born in Highland Park, Michigan, the son of Alice Katherine (née Darcy) and Charles Gerald "Jerry" Barone, MD, a surgeon.[6] His father was of Italian descent, his mother of Irish descent.[7] He graduated from Cranbrook School in 1962. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1966 and a law degree from Yale Law School in 1969, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school he clerked for Judge Wade H. McCree of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Although he has been conservative as an adult, in the 1960s he worked as an intern for Jerome Cavanagh, the Democratic mayor of Detroit.[8] He was also a supporter of George McGovern in 1972.[9] In 1975 Barone married Joan Shorenstein. She died at age 38 in 1985 after a 10-year battle with cancer.

Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, where he writes a twice weekly column and contributes to the newspaper's blog. His column is syndicated by Creators Syndicate.[10] He is also a frequent contributor during Fox News Channel's election coverage. His political views are predominantly conservative. Barone has said he is not religious, although he is sympathetic to and respectful of social conservatives.

His commentary has largely focused the topic of immigration. Perhaps partly as a result of being a descendant of Italian immigrants, Barone takes an optimistic view of contemporary immigration into the US. He says that Hispanic immigration has parallels to the Italian experience and that, given the right circumstances, current and future Hispanic and other immigrants can become Americanized and assimilated, just as the Italians were.

• Columnist, Townhall.com, 2001–present[11]
• Senior political analyst, Washington Examiner, 2009–present
• Senior writer, U.S. News & World Report, Washington, 1989–1996, 1998–departure
• Senior staff editor, Reader's Digest, Washington, 1996–1998
• editorial writer and columnist, The Washington Post, 1981–1988
• Vice president, Peter D. Hart Research Co., Washington, 1974–81
• Law clerk to Judge Wade H. McCree, Jr., U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, Detroit, 1969–71[1]

In November 2008, Barone said journalists criticized Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin because "she did not abort her Down syndrome baby." Barone later said he was "attempting to be humorous and ... went over the line."[12]

Barone has been covered the 2020 presidential election, writing numerous opinion columns on the race for the Examiner.[13] Barone argues in 2020 that national presidential nominating conventions are no longer needed or useful. He welcomes their replacement by virtual conventions with minimal participation. They were useful before the advent of television in 1952, he says:

National conventions no longer serve their original purpose, or the uses the parties and the press have made of them in the past half-century. The national conventions were, for their first 130 years, a unique communications medium. They were the only place and time where party politicians could communicate frankly and bargain personally. They were the only place where people could discover which candidates had genuine support and which just gave lip service.[14]

External video
Booknotes interview with Barone on Our Country, April 22, 1990, C-SPAN
Presentation by Barone on The New Americans, June 27, 2001, C-SPAN
Presentation by Barone on Shaping Our Nation, October 17, 2013, C-SPAN
Washington Journal interview with Barone on Shaping Our Nation, November 24, 2013, C-SPAN
Washington Journal interview with Barone on How America's Political Parties Change (and How They Don't), October 20, 2019, C-SPAN
Panel discussion on How America's Political Parties Change (and How They Don't), October 23, 2019, C-SPAN

He is the author of several books:

• Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan (Free Press, 1990)
• The New Americans: How the Melting Pot can work Again (Regnery Publishing, 2001)
• Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future (Crown Forum, 2004)
• Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval that Inspired America's Founding Fathers (Crown Publishers, 2007), a popular history of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and how it led to the American Revolution.
• principal co-author, The Almanac of American Politics, (published biennially 1972–)
• The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again (Regnery Publishing, 2012)
• Shaping Our Nation: How Surges of Migration Transformed America and Its Politics (Growth Forum, 2013)
• How America’s Political Parties Change (and How They Don’t) (Encounter Books, 2019)

• Michael Barone's Opinion Articles at Creators Syndicate
• Washington Examiner
• Barone's Examiner archives
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • In Depth interview with Barone, July 1, 2007
• Beltway Confidential
• Archive of his U.S. News & World Report columns
• Podcasts of Barone's articles
• Michael J. Barone at IMDb
• Interview with Michael Barone by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, June 29, 2010