Morton Kondracke

Kondracke was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Genevieve Marta (née Abrams) and Matthew Kondracke. His father was of Polish descent, while his maternal grandfather was from a Jewish family.[3] Kondracke graduated from Joliet Township High School in 1956, and from Dartmouth College in 1960. While at Dartmouth, he majored in English and was president of The Dartmouth newspaper.[4] Kondracke was a board member of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine and served as his class secretary. Later he received the Daniel Webster Award for Public Service from the Dartmouth Club of Washington.[5]

After college, Kondracke joined the U.S. Army and served in Washington, DC in the Counter Intelligence Corps while pursuing graduate work at Georgetown University and working part-time for the Washington Star newspaper. After quitting the Army in 1963, Kondracke joined the staff of the Chicago Sun-Times, transferring to the paper's Washington bureau in 1968, eventually becoming White House correspondent in 1974. In that role, his name was on the master list of Nixon political opponents.[6] He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1973–74.

Kondracke left the Sun-Times in 1977 to become executive editor of the news magazine The New Republic. He worked there until 1985, when he left to become Washington bureau chief for Newsweek magazine. In the meantime, his increased profile led to commentary positions at National Public Radio, This Week with David Brinkley and The Wall Street Journal.

In 1982, he joined The McLaughlin Group as one of the original panelists, a position he held for 16 years. Moderator John McLaughlin consistently teased him by pronouncing his name "more-TAHN", emphasizing the second syllable, and when guest panelist Mortimer Zuckerman appeared with Kondracke on the show as he did several times, McLaughlin would claim to be "MORT-ified".

In the 1984 presidential election, he was a panelist for the second televised debate (on foreign policy) between President Ronald Reagan and Democratic challenger Walter Mondale. During the campaign Kondracke praised Reagan for economic recovery and his handling of the Cold War, but called Reaganism "an amalgam of tactics, public relations, virulent anti-Sovietism, and institutionalized selfishness that will do nothing to deal with real-world economic and geopolitical realities" and predicted that Reagan would cause "depression, social chaos, and war" if reelected.[7]

In a newspaper column published in September 1985, Kondracke wrote that more Republicans should be in favor of emergency contraception and civil unions for same-sex couples, and Republicans should stop relying on "gay-bashing" to win elections.[8]

In 1991, Kondracke began serving as executive editor of Roll Call, retiring in 2011. During this time he wrote a twice-weekly column in Roll Call ("Pennsylvania Avenue") that was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association, part of United Media.[9] After stepping down as executive editor he remained with Roll Call as contributing editor.[10]

External video
Washington Journal interview with Kondracke and Fred Barnes on Jack Kemp: The Bleeding-Heart Conservative Who Changed America, October 8, 2015, C-SPAN

In October 1998, Kondracke began co-hosting his own television series, The Beltway Boys, with Fred Barnes, on the Fox News Channel. He was also a regular nightly contributor to Special Report with Brit Hume on the same network. In 2010, he became the main interviewer for the Jack Kemp Foundation's Oral History Project, performing more than 100 interviews with teammates, colleagues, staff members and family of the late Representative, presidential and vice-presidential candidate and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Kondracke held the Jack Kemp Chair in Political Economy in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress from September 2011 to June 2012, where he researched and wrote about "the late Jack Kemp's congressional career, his leadership role during the Reagan Era, his presidential campaign and his influence on the Republican Party and the nation".[11]

In the 1996 science fiction film Independence Day, Kondracke appears at the beginning of the movie on The McLaughlin Group, speaking about the ineffectual leadership of President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) and saying, "Leadership as a pilot in the Gulf War has no relationship to political leadership. It's a different animal."[12] Kondracke also appeared in the 1993 film Dave. Kondrake was supportive of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and referred to the Serbs as "bastards" on national television.[13]

For his correct prediction of the Democratic takeover of Congress he won The Washington Post's Crystal Ball Tournament of Champions Award in 2006.[10]

Kondracke appeared on C-SPAN in July 2017, calling for a revival of the "political center" in America.[14]

In 1967, Kondracke married Millicent Martinez, a half Jewish, half Mexican liberal activist. They had two daughters, Alexandra (movie-maker) and Andrea (medical doctor).

Kondracke struggled with alcoholism during the 1980s, and he credits Millicent for helping him end his addiction by 1987. In 1988, Millicent was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Her long struggle with the disease prompted Kondracke to become an advocate for Parkinson's disease research and for increased government spending on medical research. Millicent Kondracke grew increasingly incapacitated by the disease and died on July 22, 2004.

External video
Booknotes interview with Kondracke on Saving Milly, June 10, 2001, C-SPAN

Kondracke detailed his family's struggle with Parkinson's in a 2001 book called Saving Milly: Love, Politics, and Parkinson's Disease (ISBN 0-345-45197-X). The book was the basis of a CBS television movie called Saving Milly, starring Madeleine Stowe and Bruce Greenwood, which was broadcast on March 13, 2005.

On May 6, 2006, Kondracke married Marguerite Sallee, CEO of America's Promise.[15] He is a trustee of Dartmouth College, a board member of the Parkinson's Action Network and a member of the Founders Council of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

• Saving Milly: Love, Politics, and Parkinson's Disease, PublicAffairs, 2001, ISBN 9781586480370
• Enough Already, PublicAffairs, 2007, ISBN 9781586484859
• Morton Kondracke, Fred Barnes, Jack Kemp: The Bleeding-Heart Conservative Who Changed America, Penguin, 2015, ISBN 9780698174993

• Roll Call newspaper
• The Papers of Morton Kondracke at Dartmouth College Library
• "Kondracke Confronts the Pain and Politics of Parkinson's Disease", Tech Central Station, June 7, 2001
• "Reflections on Nelson Rockefeller's legacy" Dartmouth Life Newspaper, May, 2008
• Reagan Mondale debate October 21, 1984 on Wikimedia Commons
• Appearances on C-SPAN