PIIAI welcomes

Washington's most prominent political commentators

featuring predictions and views on:

Bob Rusbuldt, President & CEO of the Big "I", will moderate.

Wednesday, October 1
11:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.

From the White House’s Situation Room to CNN’s news program of the same name, Paul Begala’s experience gives him an unmatched perspective on politics and the media as he comments on the 2008 political season. As a political strategist or pundit, Begala has been at the center of every election cycle of the last 20 years.
The CNN political analyst and former top aide to President Clinton was reportedly the first person to predict the Democratic takeover of the House in 2006, and as senior strategist to the campaign of Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey he helped unseat the third-ranking Republican in the US Senate, allowing the Democrats to take control of that chamber as well.

Begala served as Counselor to President Clinton in the White House, where he helped define and defend the Administration’s agenda, from the State of the Union Address to the economic, domestic and international issues the White House faces each day. With his partner James Carville he was a senior strategist for the Clinton-Gore Presidential Campaign in 1992, and he has helped direct the political strategy of numerous other campaigns across the country and around the world, including advising politicians in Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
He helped his friend John F. Kennedy, Jr. launch the political magazine George and wrote the “Capitol Hillbilly” column. He is the author of several New York Times best-selling books, including Is Our Children Learning? The Case Against George W. Bush, Buck Up, Suck Up, and Come Back When You Foul Up and Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future – the latter two he co-authored with Carville. Begala’s latest book, The Third Term: Why John McCain is Really Just More George W. Bush will be released in October 2008.
Begala is a research professor at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute, and in 2007 was named the prestigious Carl Sanders Distinguished Scholar in Political Leadership at the University of Georgia School of Law. He received his B.A. in Government and his law degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was student body president.

Tucker Carlson, senior campaign correspondent for MSNBC, will replace Robert Novak as a keynote speaker at the 2008 Annual Convention Showcase.  Novak, who was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, has cancelled all speaking engagements.

Carlson joined MSNBC in February 2005 from CNN, where he was the youngest anchor in the history of that network.  At CNN, he hosted a number of shows and specials, including the network's political debate program, Crossfire.  During the same period, Carlson also hosted a weekly public affairs program on PBS, Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered.

A longtime magazine and newspaper journalist, Carlson has reported from around the world, most recently from Iraq and Lebanon.  He has been a columnist for New York magazine and Reader's Digest.  He currently writes for Esquire, The Weekly Standard and New York Times Magazine. 

Until March 2008, he was the host of MSNBC's Tucker, a fast paced, no-holds-barred conversation about the day's developments in news, politics, world issues and pop culture.