To the judges: Ronald Brownstein is known for insights that shape the way top elected officials think about politics. President Obama has handed out copies of a Brownstein article at a meeting of senior White House staff. Bill Clinton has said he learns more about America from Brownstein than from any other journalist. As a publication for Washington insiders, National Journal needs to provide our subscribers with news and analysis they can’t get elsewhere. Brownstein helps us do that. Our readers—members of Congress, White House staff, congressional aides, lobbyists, trade association executives, political strategists and other people with a professional interest in public policy and politics—are news junkies. They read several newspapers daily; they’re online constantly; and they often have C-SPAN, CNN, or another cable network on while they work. Our readers on Capitol Hill, for instance, estimate that they spend more than five hours a day consuming news in one form or another. By focusing on the intersection of policy and politics and looking for transformational changes in the political landscape, Brownstein demonstrates that political coverage doesn’t have to be defined by who’s up or down in the polls or which politician has committed the latest gaffe. Brownstein writes a weekly column for National Journal that features analysis, not commentary. In recent years, Brownstein has been at the forefront of writing about the implications of demographic change for the nation’s politics and policy. A few years ago he coined the phrase “the brown and the gray” to highlight the looming generational conflict between the predominantly white elderly population and the heavily minority young population over government tax and spending policy. The conflict will be an important story for years to come, and Brownstein has helped National Journal readers better understand the challenges that public officials will face in reconciling the competing interests. In fact, he was instrumental in launching a project that we call The Next America that examines these issues in occasional magazine supplements and in a special section of our Website.

The examples submitted here hint at Brownstein’s depth and range.

• In “Obama’s Calculation,” Brownstein describes the political considerations that have been driving

the president’s budget proposals. As he wrote, “Obama is pointing toward an overdue rebalancing of Washington’s priorities from consumption to investment—and from the past to the future.”

• In “The Rise of Ted Cruz,” Brownstein explains that the prominence of the Texas Republican, a member of what Brownstein termed the “kamikaze caucus,” illustrates that “a climate of polarization in Congress inexorably tends to empower each party’s ideological vanguard against its center.”

• In “The Unfinished Work,” Brownstein demonstrates his command of history by marking the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address with a sober-minded comparison of the challenges facing America today with those facing the America of Abraham Lincoln.

• In “Failure to Launch,” Brownstein explores the ramifications of the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act, warning that “this runway explosion could reverberate for years.”

• In “Divided by Race,” Brownstein uses the Trayvon Martin case to talk about how whites and minorities often view politics and justice in very different ways.

Thank you for your consideration. Charles Green