Many believe November’s midterm elections could be the most consequential in U.S. history. A lecture series presented by George Mason University’s Honors College and the Schar School of Policy and Government will begin Tuesday, Sept. 11, and provide opportunities to help students better understand the stakes in the election and the way campaign politics are waged.
The series will be moderated by Steve Pearlstein, a Robinson Professor of Public and International Affairs and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post, and features speakers who have deep experience with politics and campaigns, starting with visiting professor Anne Holton, former Virginia secretary of education and wife of U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. Both Pearlstein and Holton teach courses for the Schar School.
The lectures, which will continue through the week after the elections, are from 9-10:30 a.m. on Mason’s Fairfax Campus in Fenwick Library’s Main Reading Room and are open to all Mason students, faculty and staff. Coffee and donuts will be served.
The schedule:
Sept. 11: Anne Holton
Sept. 18: Peter Hart, one of the top analysts of public opinion in the United States
Sept. 25: Danny Diaz, Jeb Bush’s former campaign manager and a GOP media consultant
Oct. 2: Tom Davis, rector of Mason’s Board of Visitors and a former GOP congressman from Virginia
Oct. 16: Terry McAuliffe, former governor of Virginia and a distinguished visiting professor at Mason
Oct. 23: Karen Tumulty, Washington Post political columnist
Oct. 30: Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager
Nov. 13: Norm Ornstein, co-author of the book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks” and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute