Post-Election Panel 2016

This historic and wildly unpredictable election has left many in America stunned and divided. What happened? And more important, what is ahead? The Common Good hosted a ‘Post-Election Panel’ to discuss ‘The New Political Landscape–History in the Making’ for a candid discussion on the winners and losers, and what it means for our nation. 

Confirmed panelists included Trump Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway, investigative journalist-author Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, and Libertarian Party Vice Presidential candidate, former Governor William Weld.

Kellyanne Conway was tapped in the final months to serve as Campaign Manager for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign of President and is greatly credited for helping Trump win the election. Conway has been a highly regarded pollster as former founder and President of the polling company, inc./ WomanTrend, which is a privately-held, woman-owned corporation founded in 1995. The firm is headquartered in Washington, DC and maintains an office in New York City. Conway is one of the most quoted and noted pollsters on the national scene, having provided commentary on over 1,200 television shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, HBO, Comedy Central, MTV and the Fox News Channel, and numerous radio shows and print stories.

Carl Bernstein shared a Pulitzer Prize with Bob Woodward for his coverage of Watergate for The Washington Post. His most recent book is the acclaimed biography, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He is the author, with Woodward, of All the President’s Men and The Final Days, and, with Marco Politi, of His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time. He is also the author of Loyalties, a memoir about his parents during McCarthy–era Washington. He has written for Vanity Fair (he is also a contributing editor), Time, USA Today, Rolling Stone, and The New Republic.

He was a Washington bureau chief and correspondent for ABC News. At The Washington Post, Bernstein also was a part-time rock critic, and he still occasionally writes about music. He lives with his wife, Christine, in New York.

William Floyd Weld is an American attorney, businessman, and Republican politician who served as the 68th Governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. A Harvard and Oxford graduate, Weld began his career as legal counsel to the United States House Committee on the Judiciary before becoming the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and, later, the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. He worked on a series of high-profile public corruption cases and later resigned in protest of an ethics scandal and associated investigations into Attorney General Edwin Meese.

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Special Screening of “Disturbing the Peace”

The Common Good and Felicia Taylor presented a private screening and dinner for the extraordinary documentary, Disturbing the Peace. The screening was followed by a Q&A with filmmakers Stephen Apkon and Marcina Hale, and members of Combatants for Peace.

Disturbing the Peace follows a group of former enemy combatants - Israeli soldiers from the most elite units, and Palestinian fighters, many of whom served years in prison - who have come together to challenge the status quo and say "enough". The film traces their transformational journeys from soldiers committed to armed battle to non-violent peace activists. It is a story of the human potential unleashed when we stop participating in a story that no longer serves us, and how the power of our convictions to take action can create new possibilities.

Stephen Apkon is a filmmaker and social entrepreneur. He is the Founder and former Executive Director of the Jacob Burns Film Center, a non-profit film and education center located in Pleasantville, NY. Opened in 2001, the JBFC has become one of the premier film institutions in the United States, with a Board of Directors that includes Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Jonathan Demme among others. Disturbing the Peace is his directorial debut.

Marcina Hale is co-founder of Reconsider. With degrees in both Media and Psychotherapy, it is part of Marcina’s vision to utilize film as a catalyst to create experiences that evoke thought and conversations that both challenge and inspire a way of relating to live more dynamically. In her roles as master therapist and dynamic facilitator, she conducts workshops that challenge and inspire others to live their lives more consciously and to take responsibility for their own creations.

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Meet & Greet: Ambassador Nicholas Burns

The Common Good welcomed Ambassador Nicholas Burns to talk on America’s foreign relations and how the new president is affecting our global relationships.

Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns is one of the foremost experts in the world on diplomacy and foreign affairs, and was an adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Ambassador Burns has served the United States for twenty-seven years, providing expertise for the last 5 administrations, and was a member of Secretary of State John Kerry’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board at the U.S. Department of State. He was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008; the State Department’s third-ranking official when he led negotiations on the U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Agreement; and was the lead U.S. negotiator on Iran’s nuclear program for President George W. Bush’s administration. He was U.S. Ambassador to NATO (2001–2005), and Ambassador to Greece (1997–2001).

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Commentary on the 2016 Presidential Election with Bill Kristol

Bill Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, spoke on his views of the 2016 presidential election. He was hosted by Steven Buffone and Chele Chiavacci Farley.

Bill Kristol is the founder and editor of the political magazine The Weekly Standard and a political analyst, known for his neo-conservatism and frank and outspoken approach to issues.

Kristol taught political philosophy and American politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, before joining the Reagan administration, and finally reaching Chief of Staff to the Vice President in the George H. W. Bush administration. Kristol has played a major role in the debate on American foreign policy since September 11th, and served as a foreign policy advisor for Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign.

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The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016

The Common Good Forum focused on national security, economic prosperity, the 2016 election campaign, and investment advice presented by our long list of knowledgeable speakers to speak on each of these topics.

Our distinguished participants included:

• Joel Benenson, Democratic Pollster and Chief Strategist for Hillary For America

• Ian Bremmer, Founder & President of Eurasia Group and author of Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World

• David Burstein, CEO & Co-Founder of Run for America, commentator on Millennials, social innovation and politics, and author of Fast Future: How the Millennial Generation is Shaping our World

• Heidi Crebo-Rediker, Former Chief Economist at State Department and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

• Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

• Stephanie Cutter, Founding Partner at Precision Strategies and Former Deputy Campaign Manager for Obama 2012

• Seth Flaxman, Co-Founder of Democracy Works

• Senator Lindsey Graham, (R-SC), 2016 Presidential candidate

• William Galston, Former policy advisor to President Bill Clinton, Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution, and Wall Street Journal columnist

• Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Economist, President of the American Action Forum (AAF), and former Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

• Abby Huntsman, Fox News reporter

• General (Ret.) Ron Keys, USAF, Advisory Board Member of the Center for Climate and Security

• Ted Koppel, Legendary journalist, former anchor of ABC’s Nightline, and author of Lights Out

• Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s Ambassador to the United States

• Larry Kudlow, CNBC Senior Contributor and economist

• Andrew McAfee, Technology and business expert, Co-Director of the MIT Initiative on Digital Economy, and author of The Second Machine Age

• Kayleigh McEnany, CNN Political Commentator and Trump supporter

• General (Ret.) David Petraeus, Former CIA Director, Former U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) Commander, and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute

• Governor Ed Rendell, Former Governor of Pennsylvania and Chair of the 2016 Democratic National Convention

• Alan Schwartz, Executive Chairman of Guggenheim Partners

• Stephanie Sharis, CEO DailyClout and creator of BillCam

• Brandon Stanton, Humans of New York Founder

• Michael Steele, Former RNC Chairman and MSNBC political analyst

• Jeanne Sullivan, Co-Founder of StarVest Partners

• Arun Sundararajan, Stern Professor and author of the upcoming book, The Sharing Economy

• Kim Taipale, Executive Director of the Stilwell Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy

• Jacob Weisberg, Chairman of The Slate Group, whose roster includes Slate magazine

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Meet & Greet: Katie McGinty

The Common Good hosted a meet and greet with Katie McGinty, who ran to be a 2016 Democratic candidate seeking election to the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania.

McGinty is a former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and a 2014 Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania Governor. After graduating from law school, she became a judicial clerk for the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. She won the Congressional Fellowship of the American Chemical Society, which led her to a position working for then-Senator Al Gore (D). In 1993, President Bill Clinton (D) asked her to serve as his deputy assistant and then as chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She served as an adviser to Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign before joining Natsource, where she served as vice president for asset management. She remained in this role until 2003, when she was named head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection by Gov. Ed Rendell (D).

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Meet & Greet: The Right Honorable David Miliband

The Right Honorable David Miliband talks about United Kingdom government and his views, hosted by Fern Hurst.

David Miliband is President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), where he oversees the agency’s humanitarian relief operations in more than 30 war-affected countries and its refugee resettlement and assistance programs in 25 United States cities. Under Miliband’s leadership, the IRC has expanded its ability to rapidly respond to humanitarian cries and meet the needs of an unprecedented number of people uprooted by conflict, war and disaster. The organization is implementing an ambitious global strategy to bring clear outcomes, strong evidence and systematic research to the humanitarian programs through collaborative partnerships with the public and private sectors.

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Creating a Great Economy: Lincoln’s Surprising Relevance Today

It is not just a prediction, but front page headlines and our new reality –  the US middle class is shrinking and now makes up only 50% of our people. Our roads, bridges, railroads, ports and other infrastructure get a D+ rating by civil engineers. Income inequality is on the rise and a hot political issue. Creating broad-based prosperity, economic fairness, and opportunity can no longer be ignored.

President Lincoln will be forever enshrined in the national consciousness for his moral courage in abolishing slavery. But economist and author Norton Garfinkle explained how this great president also has strong lessons for us today on how a great nation is built upon an economy based on shared progress.

Garfinkle talked about Lincoln’s life and achievements anew through this important and refreshing lens – and show how Lincoln’s approach on the economy, from railroads, bridges, to commerce, are more relevant than ever in the times we live in today.

Norton Garfinkle is an economist, businessman and public servant. He is chairman of Princeton Scientific Capital Management, a financial investment company. He is also chairman of Princeton SciTech, an investment company that specializes in building new internet based technology companies.

Garfinkle is Chairman of the Future of American Democracy Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation in partnership with Yale University Press and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, dedicated to research and education aimed at renewing and sustaining the historic vision of American democracy. He is also a board member and chairman of the Finance Committee of the Public Agenda, a non-partisan, non-profit, public opinion research organization founded by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Social Scientist, Daniel Yankelovich, America’s leading expert on public opinion.

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