As the Battle for the White House heats up, tune in to MSNBC for the latest news and best political analysis. Scroll below to learn more about MSNBC’s political analysts.
Willie Brown is a colorful, popular political icon who ran for San Francisco mayor in 1995 after term limits forced him from his long-time power base as speaker of the California Assembly in Sacramento.
Brown came to California in 1951, and received an education in law at Hastings College of the Law and a political education at local branches of the Young Democrats and the NAACP.
In 1964, he was elected to the state assembly, the first African American legislator to represent San Francisco in that body. In 1980, he was made Speaker of the Assembly. Brown is regarded as one of California’s most enduring and controversial politicians.
Craig Crawford is a columnist and special contributor for Congressional Quarterly.
For the past six years, Crawford has run The Hotline, a daily online political briefing published by the National Journal Group. Previously he was a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, where he covered political campaigns throughout the South. Crawford was the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief from 1989 to 1997. Before becoming a journalist, he served in 1984 as the Alabama State Field Director for the John Glenn presidential primary campaign, and the Georgia State Field Director for the Mondale/Ferraro general election campaign.
Ms. Goodwin is the author of No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (1993). The book received the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History.
She has also written about other presidents and their families. Her works include The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987), which was made into a six hour television mini-series on ABC in 1990, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976). Ms. Goodwin worked as an assistant to President Johnson during his last year in the White House and later assisted him in the preparation of his memoirs.
Ms. Goodwin holds a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. She also taught government at Harvard for ten years, including a course on the American Presidency. She is an avid baseball fan and was the first woman journalist to enter the Boston Red Sox locker room. Doris served as a consultant for Ken Burns’ PBS documentary The History of Baseball.
Dee Dee Myers is the first woman and youngest person ever to serve as White House Press Secretary. During the first years of the Clinton Administration, Myers explained the actions of the new president to a vigilant press corps and to the nation. She earned the respect of both with her sharp political instincts, sense of humor, and ability to explain complex subjects in straightforward language. Among her experiences include joining the Clinton campaign in 1991, serving as a press secretary for Dianne Feinstein in her 1990 bid for governor, and working on the presidential campaigns of Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and Vice President Walter F. Mondale. Myers is currently a Contributing Editor to Vanity Fair magazine and a consultant to the NBC television drama The West Wing.
David Nyhan is a political analyst and veteran journalist with a background in print and broadcast journalism. He is a frequent television commentator on political and current affairs and writes a twice-weekly political column for the Eagle Tribune chain of newspapers circulating in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Nyhan is a former columnist and associate editor at the Boston Globe. For 31 years, he covered national and regional politics for the Globe. As a commentator and panelist, he appears on broadcasts involving politics and current affairs.
Lawrence O’Donnell is also MSNBC’s Senior Political Analyst and a panelist on“The McLaughlin Group.” He has been a frequent contributor on “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” as well as NBC’s “The Chris Matthews Show.” O’Donnell has also served as anchor on MSNBC political programming including “Real Time.”
Prior to joining MSNBC, O’Donnell served as Chief of Staff to the Senate Finance Committee from 1993-1995. The Finance Committee has jurisdiction over legislation involving taxation, international trade, health care, Social Security, welfare and other income security programs.