Ben J. Wattenberg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Benjamin J. "Ben" Wattenberg (b. 1933, The Bronx, New York) is a prominent American neo-conservative commentator and writer. He graduated from Hobart College in 1955, majoring in English.

From 1955 to 1957 he was in the U.S. Air Force, based in San Antonio. He was an aide and speechwriter to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968, and served as an advisor to Hubert Humphrey's race for the Senate in 1970 and Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson's contest for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, and Democratic Party presidential primaries of 1976, and served on the 1972 and 1976 Democratic National Convention platform committees.

He first came to national attention as co-author with Richard M. Scammon of The Real Majority, the 1970 analysis believed to have provided the basis for the campaign strategies of the Nixon administration in the 1970 and 1972 elections. His other books include:

This U.S.A., 1965
The Real America, 1974
Against All Enemies: A Novel, co-authored with Ervin S. Duggan 1977
The Good News is, the Bad News is Wrong, 1984
The Birth Dearth, 1987
The First Universal Nation, 1991
Values Matter Most, 1995
The First Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America 1900-2000, co-authored with Theodore Caplow and Louis Hicks, 2000
Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future, 2004

He has been the host of a number of PBS television specials, including Values Matter Most, The Grandchild Gap, America's Number One, What Next?, The Stockholder Society, A Third Choice (about the role of third parties in American politics), The Democrats, and The First Measured Century. He is currently moderator of a weekly PBS television program, Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg, and has previously hosted PBS series In Search of the Real America and Ben Wattenberg At Large.

Wattenberg is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. He has been appointed to various committees and commissions by Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush (senior), as well as by then-Speaker Thomas Foley.