Bruce Reed – 1978 Scholar

Perhaps Bruce Reed, currently a Senior Advisor at the Broad Foundation and former Assistant to President Obama and Chief of Staff to Vice President Biden, already had plans to change the American political landscape when he traveled to Washington as one of Idaho’s Presidential Scholars. A graduate of Princeton and Oxford, and a Rhodes Scholar, Reed served as chief speechwriter for Senator Al Gore from 1985-1989, and later helped to launch the New Democratic movement as policy director for the DLC. In 1992, he was deputy manager for policy of the Clinton-Gore campaign, and oversaw development of the domestic, economic, and foreign policy positions. Mr. Reed then served for eight years in the Clinton-Gore White House. As the President’s chief domestic policy advisor and director of the Domestic Policy Council he developed and managed the administration’s agenda on welfare reform, crime, education, tobacco, and other domestic issues. In 2001, Reed returned to lead the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and The Economist, and he is founding editor of the DLC magazine, The New Democrat.