Political analyst Norman Ornstein to speak Oct. 2

Norman Ornstein
Norman Ornstein

Political analyst Norman Ornstein will discuss “Coping with Dysfunction: How Can the American Political System Emerge from its Morass?” Oct. 2 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ornstein will deliver the Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished Lecture in Public Policy at 5:30 p.m. in Gerrard Hall.

Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is a long-time observer and scholar of Congress and politics, who writes the weekly “Washington Inside Out “column for National Journal and The Atlantic. For 30 years, he was an election eve analyst for CBS News; in 2012, he was a principal on-air election eve analyst for BBC News.

Ornstein led a working group of scholars and practitioners that helped shape the McCain-Feingold campaign financing reform law

His recent book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism” (with Thomas Mann, Basic Books), was a New York Times bestseller. It was named one of the 10 best books on politics in 2012 by The New Yorker and one of the best books of 2012 by The Washington Post. Foreign Policy magazine named Ornstein one of 2012’s 100 Top Global Thinkers.

The Lambeth Lecture in the College of Arts and Sciences is open to the public and honors the former executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.