Paul Begala

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Paul Begala (born May 12, 1961) is a political consultant, a commentator, and a former advisor to President Bill Clinton. He gained national prominence as half of the political consulting team Carville and Begala. Until June 2005, Begala was a co-host of CNN's political debate program, Crossfire. He is Research Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University Public Policy Institute.

1 Biography
2 Criticism
3 Bibliography
- 3.1 Co-authored with James Carville
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Begala was born in New Jersey and raised in Missouri City, Texas. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas School of Law, where he taught briefly before going to work for Bill Clinton. While at the University of Texas, Begala was a candidate for Student Government president. However, he finished second to a write-in campaign for Hank the Hallucination, a monster character from the comic strip "Eyebeam." Begala was declared the human winner, following a ruling that imaginary characters could not hold the position [1].

Paul Begala burst onto the political scene when he, along with partner James Carville, helped then-governor of Arkansas Clinton win the 1992 presidential election. After working on Clinton's campaign, Begala served as a consultant to the President. As an aide to the President, Paul helped defend the Clinton-Gore agenda and served as a public spokesperson.

Aside from the 1992 presidential election, Begala and Carville have had other well-known political victories which include the 1991 Senate victory of Harris Wofford, the 1988 re-election campaign of incumbent Senator Frank Lautenberg, and the gubernatorial victories of Robert Casey in 1986 and Zell Miller in 1990.

Before becoming a co-host of Crossfire, Begala co-hosted a show, Equal Time, with Oliver North on MSNBC. He also was a contributor to John F. Kennedy Jr.'s political magazine George in the late 1990s.

Begala is a devout Roman Catholic. He is pro-life and calls on fellow Catholics to be consistently pro-life — in opposition to not only abortion, but war, the death penalty, and lack of health care. In his most recent book, Take It Back, he praised the Democrats for Life of America for doing just that. Begala still keeps on hand a pocket New Testament he received from Brother Jed in the 1970s.

As an author and co-author, Begala has written a handful of best selling political books. His writings include: Is Our Children Learning?: The Case Against George W. Bush, Buck Up, Suck Up and Come Back When You Foul Up, and It's Still the Economy Stupid.

[edit] Criticism

Paul Begala has an over the top style of commentary that has led him to be parodied on Saturday Night Live in an on-going skit of Hardball with Chris Matthews (Begala has been a repeated guest of that show in real life). Andrew Sullivan also gives out a Begala Award for (what Sullivan deems as) extreme liberal hyperbole. Many conservative radio personalities including Rush Limbaugh have nicknamed Begala "the forehead" (Begala has described Limbaugh as "a drug-addled gasbag who's self-discredited" [2])

He was number 27 on a list of 100 put together by conservative commentator Bernard Goldberg of People Who Are Screwing Up America.

Also critically, he is considered, with James Carville, to denigrate the grassroots popularity of Howard Dean's 50-State Strategy, which is to not just concentrate on already Democratic strongholds, but to adopt the successful strategy from the Republicans of building the Democratic party from the ground up, in every city and state in the union, and that every vote should be asked for and courted.

[edit] Bibliography

Is Our Children Learning?: The Case Against George W. Bush, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000 ISBN 0-7432-1478-1.
It's Still the Economy, Stupid: George W. Bush, The GOP's CEO, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002 ISBN 0-7432-4647-0.

[edit] Co-authored with James Carville

Buck Up, Suck Up... and Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning Secrets from the War Room, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002 ISBN 0-7432-2422-1.
Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006 ISBN 0-7432-7752-X.