American Conservative Union's David Keene to Speak April 26

April 14, 2004

April 14, 2004, Greencastle, Ind. - "We are proud of the fact that since 1964 we have helped change the face of American politics in a dramatic and irreversible way," says David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. On Monday, April 26, Keene will come to the campus of DePauw University for the third and final Gertrude and G.D. Crain Jr. Lecture of the spring semester. His talk, "President George W. Bush: What Will His Second Term Be Like?," will begin at 4:15 in Watson Forum of the Eugene S. Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media, and is free and open to the public.

The American Conservative Union is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots conservative organization. David Keene also serves as a lobbyist with the Carmen Group, a governmental affairs and legislative relations firm based in Washington, D.C.

Keene has been involved in presidential politics since 1968. He worked in the White House during the Nixon administration as political assistant to Vice President Spiro Agnew and on Capitol Hill as executive assistant to Senator James L. Buckley. As southern regional coordinator for Ronald Reagan in 1976 and national political director for George Bush in 1980, Keene won recognition for his skill as a political organizer and strategist. He also served as a senior political consultant to Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole in 1988 and was an informal advisor during the 1996 campaign.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, David Keene has written extensively on US politics, is a regular guest on political talk shows and news segments, and writes a regular column for The Hill, a newspaper covering Congress. He has been a John F. Kennedy Fellow at Harvard University and was a visiting professional scholar at the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.

Endowed by Rance Crain, president of Crain Communications and a member of DePauw's Class of 1960, the Crain Lecture Series, which honors Mr. Crain's parents, is designed to enrich the DePauw environment in the area of public affairs and public issues. Moderated by Ken Bode, Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Professor of Journalism at DePauw, Crain Lectures feature a conversation between the guest and Dr. Bode, as well as what the professor calls "maximum opportunity for audience participation."