Newsweek Editor to Discuss Women's Right to Vote at Eastern

Written by Allison Kelly

Willimantic, Conn. - Newsweek Contributing Editor Eleanor Clift will speak at Eastern Connecticut State University on Feb. 12 at 7 p.m. in the Betty R. Tipton Room of the Student Center. Clift will discuss, "Inside Washington: Presidential Politics," and talk about her new book, "Founding Sisters," which focuses on the 19^th Amendment and the path to women's suffrage.

Starting her career as a secretary to Newsweek's national affairs editor in New York, she was one of the first women at the magazine to move from secretary to reporter. Clift has been a contributing editor at Newsweek since 1994. She primarily covers topics dealing with the influence of women in politics as well as the Washington power structure. Clift has served as a congressional and political correspondent for the magazine for six years. She was instrumental in covering Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, and was named deputy Washington bureau chief in June 1992.

Clift is a regular panelist on the talk show, "The McLaughlin Group," and a political analyst for Fox News Network. She also serves as the co-chair of the board of the International Women's Media Foundation.

Clift has co-written two books with her late husband, Tom Brazaitis, "War Without Bloodshed: The Art of Politics," and "Madam President: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling." She has also written a memoir, "Two Weeks of Life," about the last two weeks of her husband's life and the concurrent controversy surrounding the Terri Schiavo case, when the entire nation considered the moral issues posed with the death of a brain-damaged woman in Florida in 2005.

Tickets for Arts and Lecture Series events are $10 for the general public and can be reserved by calling (860) 465-0036 or sending an email to tickets@easternct.edu. For more information on the 2009 series, visit www.easternct.edu/ecsu/arts_lecture.