Michael Barone is Senior Writer, U.S. News & World Report. Barone grew up in Detroit and Birmingham, Michigan. He was graduated from Harvard College (1966) and Yale Law School (1969), and was an editor of the Harvard Crimson and the Yale Law Journal. Mr. Barone served as Law Clerk to Judge Wade H. McCree, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1969 to 1971. From 1974 to 1981 he was a Vice President of the polling firm of Peter D. Hart Research Associates. From 1981 to 1988 he was a member of the editorial page staff of the Washington Post. From 1989 to 1996 and again from 1998 to the present, he has been a Senior Writer with U.S. News & World Report. From 1996 to 1998 he was a Senior Staff Editor at Reader's Digest.
 
Mr. Barone is the principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, published by National Journal every two years. The first edition appeared in 1971, and the 16th edition, The Almanac of American Politics 2002, appears in August 2001. He is also the author of The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again (Regnery, 2001) and Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan (Free Press, 1990). His essays have appeared in several other books, including "Our Harvard" and "Beyond the Godfather."