Michael Tomasky

Michael Tomasky
Born	1960 (age 50–51) Morgantown, West Virginia
Education	West Virginia University, New York University
Occupation	commentator, author, editor
Nationality	U.S.
Notable credit(s)	Democracy, The Daily Beast, Guardian America, The American Prospect, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books

Michael Tomasky (born 1960) is a liberal American columnist, journalist and author. He is the editor in chief of Democracy, a special correspondent for Newsweek / The Daily Beast, a contributing editor for The American Prospect, and a contributor to The New York Review of Books.

Biography

Tomasky was born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia. He attended West Virginia University as an undergraduate and then studied political science in graduate school at New York University. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Harper's Weekly, The Nation, The Village Voice, The New York Review of Books, Dissent, Lingua Franca, George, and GQ. He lives with his wife (Sarah) and daughter (Margot Julianna Kerr Tomasky, born July 6, 2010) in Silver Spring, Maryland.^[1][2]

From 1995 to 2002, Tomasky was a columnist at New York magazine, where he wrote the "City Politic" column. He was later executive editor of The American Prospect, and remains a contributing editor.^[3] On October 23, 2007, Guardian America was launched with Tomasky as its editor.^[4] On March 3, 2009 he replaced Kenneth Baer as editor of U.S. political journal Democracy, at which time his title at The Guardian changed to editor-at-large.^[5] In May 2011 Tomasky left The Guardian to join Newsweek / The Daily Beast as a special correspondent.^[6]

Tomasky is the author of Left for Dead: The Life, Death, and Possible Resurrection of Progressive Politics in America (1996), a study of the intellectual collapse of the American left, and of Hillary's Turn: Inside Her Improbable, Victorious Senate Campaign (2001), a chronicle of Hillary Clinton's successful election to the Senate in 2000.

Political views

In an October 2010 essay, "The Elections: How Bad for Democrats?", Tomasky gives his "own answer to the question of how things got this bad," expounding a theme he had been developing for several years in other articles:

Since the Reagan years, "Republicans routinely speak in broad themes and tend to blur the details, while Democrats typically ignore broad themes and focus on details. Republicans, for example, speak constantly of “liberty” and “freedom” and couch practically all their initiatives—tax cuts, deregulation, and so forth—within these large categories. Democrats, on the other hand, talk more about specific programs and policies and steer clear of big themes....What Democrats have typically not done well since Reagan’s time is connect their policies to their larger beliefs. In fact they have usually tried to hide those beliefs, or change the conversation when the subject arose. The result has been that for many years Republicans have been able to present their philosophy as somehow truly “American,” while attacking the Democratic belief system as contrary to American values.^[7]

Tomasky has explained that having good ideas is not as successful as having ideas the media pick up on:

As I've written many times, Democrats in general still tend to think that you win political fights by having superior arguments. This of course is manifestly not true. You win political arguments by framing the question the media decide to take up. That means being aggressive in your framing, creating conflict (which the media love), and making sure that reporters will go to the other side and ask them well, how do you respond to this? Some significant number of Americans who don't hate Barack Obama nevertheless think he wants socialism simply because conservatives have spent 18 months saying that Obama (and the Democrats generally) want socialism.^[8]

Books

• Left for Dead: The Life, Death, and Possible Resurrection of Progressive Politics in America, Michael Tomasky, Free Press, June 10, 1996, ISBN 978-0684827506
• Hillary's Turn: Inside Her Improbable, Victorious Senate Campaign, Michael Tomasky, Free Press, February 15, 2001, ISBN 978-0684873022

References

1. ^ In lieu of the Friday quiz, an introduction, Michael Tomasky, The Guardian, July 9, 2010
2. ^ Liberals and despair, Michael Tomasky, The Guardian, July 12, 2010
3. ^ Masthead The American Prospect
4. ^ Welcome to Guardian America, Michael Tomasky, The Guardian, October 23, 2007
5. ^ Michael Tomasky joins political journal Democracy, Jemima Kiss, The Guardian, February 18, 2009
6. ^ Democracy Editor Tomasky Joins Newsweek/Daily Beast, Democracy, April 25, 2011
7. ^ The Elections: How Bad for Democrats?, Michael Tomasky, The New York Review of Books, October 28, 2010, p. 6
8. ^ GOP wrecking the economy, Michael Tomasky, The Guardian, June 28, 2010

External links

• Column archive at The American Prospect
• Column archive at The Daily Beast
• Democracy
• Column archive at The Guardian
• Column archive at The New York Review of Books
• Conversations with Charlie Rose
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Video discussions/debates involving Tomasky on Bloggingheads.tv
• Works by or about Michael Tomasky in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Persondata
Name	Tomasky, Michael
Alternative names
Short description	journalist, editor and author
Date of birth	1960
Place of birth	Morgantown, West Virginia
Date of death
Place of death