September 2012 Founders’ Evening

On September 12, FORR founders and invited guests enjoyed dinner on the Patio of the California Club and joined a conversation with Steven H. Hayward, New York Times bestselling biographer of Ronald Reagan and one of the original founders of FORR. Steven Hayward shared fascinating anecdotes concerning the presidential campaigns of 1976 and l980, particularly what his research revealed about Reagan's tenacity, his intentional and highly discipled use of speech and debate, and Reagan's uncommon commitment belief in American Exceptionalism and a bright future for this nation, so long as we retain or understanding of the unique philosophical foundation on which the United States and the US Constitution were formed.

Steven F. Hayward

Steven F. Hayward is the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Law and Economics at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC and Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Government from Claremont Graduate School, and has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University and Ashland University. He is the author of a two-volume narrative history of Ronald Reagan and his effect on American political life, The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980 and The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution: 1980-1989 (Crown Forum Books). National review has called the first volume "grand and fascinating history". William Niskanen, chairman of Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, called volume 2 "simply the best history of the Reagan presidency."

Hayward also writes for the National Review, Reason, the Weekly Standard, the American Spectator, The Public Interest, the Claremont Review of Books, and Policy Review. His newspaper articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune