PASADENA—Veteran political commentator Mark Shields will discuss a variety of topics during an exclusive appearance May 6 at the California Institute of Technology.
"An Evening with Mark Shields" is scheduled for 8 p.m. in Beckman Auditorium, on the Caltech campus in Pasadena. The free event will feature an interview of Shields by Los Angeles Times Washington bureau chief Doyle McManus, and will include a question-and-answer period with the audience.
Shields is a nationally known columnist and commentator who regularly appears on nationwide television as moderator of CNN's The Capital Gang, as well as an analyst on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer each Friday, and CNN's Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields each Sunday.
An unparalleled analyst of the U.S. political system, Shields has written a column for the Washington Post, and is author of the book On the Campaign Trail. He has been described by one reviewer as "the wittiest political analyst around, and he is frequently the most trenchant, fair-minded and thoughtful."
A native of Weymouth, Massachusetts, Shields graduated from Notre Dame University with a major in philosophy, and later served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
He began his career as a legislative assistant for U.S. Senator William Proxmire in 1964, and helped organize the California primary for Robert F. Kennedy in 1968—the primary election in which Kennedy emerged as the leading Democratic candidate just before his assassination.
Shields worked for Edmund Muskie's presidential campaign of 1972, and the same year for Sargent Shriver's bid for the vice presidency. In all, he managed political campaigns in some 38 states.
Shields joined the editorial staff of the Washington Post in 1979, and began a column the following year that is now syndicated weekly by Creators Syndicate. He has been a political commentator on television and radio since the early 1980s, and provided political analysis of both the 1988 and 1992 presidential elections.
He is married to Anne Shields, a deputy solicitor for the U.S. Department of the Interior. They have one daughter, Amy, who is a student at Duke University.
Doyle McManus has been the Times Washington bureau chief since 1996, and a staff writer for the paper since 1978. A former UPI bureau chief in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, McManus is a native of San Francisco with a bachelor's degree from Stanford University.
Winner of several journalism awards, McManus is author of three books: Free at Last; Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-88; and Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World.
"An Evening with Mark Shields" is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required. For directions or parking information, contact Caltech Public Events at (626) 395-4652.
Written by Robert Tindol