Ben Wattenberg
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Benjamin Joseph Wattenberg (born Joseph Ben Zion Wattenberg;Roberts, Sam

New York ''Times'', June 29, 2015. Retrieved 2015-06-29.
August 26, 1933 – June 28, 2015) was an American author, political commentator, and
demographer Demography () is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analysis examine ...
associated with both Republican and Democratic presidents and politicians in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. ''
National Affairs ''National Affairs'' is a quarterly magazine in the United States about political affairs that was first published in September 2009. Its founding editor, Yuval Levin, and authors are typically considered to be conservative and right-wing. The ...
'' argued that Wattenberg "challenged and reshaped conventional wisdom ... at least once a decade".


Early life and education

Joseph Ben Zion Wattenberg was born on August 26, 1933, to
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
immigrants from Eastern Europe in
The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...
. He grew up in the Sholem Aleichem Houses, which was built by Yiddish socialists in the 1920s, and attended
DeWitt Clinton High School DeWitt Clinton High School is a public high school located since 1929 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Opened in 1897 in Lower Manhattan as an all-boys school, it maintained that status for 86 years before becoming co-ed in 1983. From i ...
. In 1955, he graduated from Hobart College with a major in English. From 1955 to 1957, he was in the
US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
, based in
San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...
. His first writing position was as a marine expert and edited ''Rivers & Harbors'' and ''Water Transportation Economics'', and the ''
McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology The ''McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology'' is an English-language multivolume encyclopedia, specifically focused on scientific and technical subjects, and published by McGraw-Hill Education. The most recent edition in print is the el ...
''. In 1975, Hobart College awarded Wattenberg an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and gave the commencement address to the graduating class that year.


Career


Writing

Wattenberg first came to national attention in 1965 with the book ''This U.S.A.: An Unexpected Family Portrait of 194,067,296 Americans Drawn From the Census'' co-authored with census director
Richard M. Scammon Richard Montgomery Scammon (July 17, 1915 – April 27, 2001) was an American author, political scientist and elections scholar. He served as Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census from 1961 to 1965. Afterwards, he worked for decades direc ...
. The authors utilized data from the 1960 Census to support the theory that the United States had entered a
golden age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...
by citing decreases in the rates of divorce, traffic deaths, drug addictions, and school dropouts as well as greater economic and educational opportunity for African Americans. Critics of the book cited the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War to call it propaganda of the American society. His process of layering data with narrative led to the creation of the term "
data journalism Data journalism or data-driven journalism (DDJ) is journalism based on the filtering and analysis of large data sets for the purpose of creating or elevating a news story. Data journalism reflects the increased role of numerical data in the p ...
". The publication caught the attention of
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
and Wattenberg became a White House speechwriter in 1966. He later became an advisor to
Hubert Humphrey Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American politician who served from 1965 to 1969 as the 38th vice president of the United States. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 19 ...
's 1970 Senate race and Senator
Henry M. Jackson Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson (May 31, 1912 – September 1, 1983) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. representative (1941–1953) and U.S. senator (1953–1983) from the state of Washington (state), Washington. A Cold W ...
's contest for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, and Democratic Party presidential primaries of 1976, and served on the
1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...
and
1976 Democratic National Convention The 1976 Democratic National Convention met at Madison Square Garden in New York City, from July 12 to July 15, 1976. The assembled United States Democratic Party delegates at the convention nominated former Governor Jimmy Carter of Geo ...
platform committees. In 1970, Wattenberg teamed up again with
Richard M. Scammon Richard Montgomery Scammon (July 17, 1915 – April 27, 2001) was an American author, political scientist and elections scholar. He served as Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census from 1961 to 1965. Afterwards, he worked for decades direc ...
to write '' The Real Majority.'' The authors analyzed electoral data including, the 1968 presidential election, polls, and surveys to argue that the American electorate was
centrist Centrism is the range of political ideologies that exist between left-wing politics and right-wing politics on the left–right political spectrum. It is associated with moderate politics, including people who strongly support moderate policie ...
, and that parties or candidates, to be viable, must appeal to the "real majority" of the electorate at the center. The real majority was described as “middle aged, middle class and middle minded” and therefore politicians ought to move to the middle to remain in touch with mainstream America. As a Democrat, Watternberg intended the analysis to be embraced by his party; instead, the cultural touchstones of race, crime, and poverty were the basis of the campaign strategies of the
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
administration in the 1970 congressional elections and 1972 presidential election. After the defeat of Senator
George McGovern George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American politician, diplomat, and historian who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator from South Dakota, and the Democratic Party (United States), Democ ...
in 1972, Wattenberg helped found the
Coalition for a Democratic Majority A coalition is formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political, military, or economic spaces. Formation According to ''A G ...
which focused on pocketbook issues and centrist themes to move the party back to the center. In 1978, Wattenberg was sponsored by the
American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...
(AEI) in Washington, D.C., to publish the magazine ''Public Opinion''. His 1984 book, ''The Good News Is the Bad News Is Wrong'', suggested that the United States was not as troubled as the media and liberals proclaimed, despite economic and social upheaval. Wattenberg's 1987 book, ''The Birth Dearth'', was cited in a contemporary review as a "fascinating and frightening book" with the reviewer noting that the book has "humorous passages, but that " e only trouble is that this humor is sometimes unintentional." The book was cited by anti-racism activist
Jane Elliott Jane Elliott (' Jennison; born November 30, 1933) is an American diversity educator. As a schoolteacher, she became known for her "Blue eyes/Brown eyes" exercise, which she first conducted with her third-grade class on April 5, 1968, the day ...
as a suggested book for learning about the problems of racism. In an interview, Elliott stated the central tenet of the book as " e main problem confronting the United States these days is that there aren’t enough white babies being born" and that " says if we don’t change this and change it rapidly, white people will lose their numerical majority in this country and this will no longer be a white man’s land"; in another interview in 2022,
Fern Schumer Chapman Fern Schumer Chapman is a journalist and author best known for her autobiographical book '' Motherland: Beyond the Holocaust - A Mother-Daughter Journey to Reclaim the Past''. Her second book, ''Is It Night or Day?'', was released in 2010. She is ...
, who reviewed the book when first released, later called it "outrageous", that Wattenberg "worried that America would no longer be characterized as a nation that is predominately of white European extraction", and stated that " oking back, I believe he launched the white nationalist movement." Later liberal and progressive writers have also attributed the book's focus on white population as part of a larger belief in white supremacy, and of a larger "white extinction anxiety" to justify anti-abortion legislation. In 1995, his book ''Values Matter Most'' drew the attention of President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
which examined how centralist themes of the Republican party had helped win congressional victories of 1994. The publication also expressed concern at the waning of American values both abroad and at home but felt that the government could help cure the "culture of irresponsibility". In 1996,
Henry Louis Gates Jr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950), popularly known by his childhood nickname "Skip", is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of t ...
, referred to the book as "the book that prompted Clinton’s infamous midnight-of-the-soul telephone call to the author." As a senior fellow at AEI, he wrote '' The First Measured Century'' in 2001 with Theodore Caplow and Louis Hicks. His published works helped popularize the term "
psephology Psephology (; from Greek ) is the study of elections and voting. Psephology attempts to both forecast and explain election results. The term is more common in Britain and in those English-speaking communities that rely heavily on the British st ...
", the study of elections. He is credited with the introduction of the term “
social issue A social issue is a problem that affects many people within a society. It is a group of common problems in present-day society that many people strive to solve. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's control. Soc ...
s” to the political lexicon.


Television commentator

Wattenberg was the host of a number of
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
television specials A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of ent ...
, including ''Values Matter Most'', ''The Grandchild Gap'', ''America's Number One'', ''Ben Wattenberg's 1980'', ''The Stockholder Society'', ''A Third Choice'' (about the role of third parties in American politics), '' Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism'', and '' The Democrats''. He hosted the weekly PBS television program, '' Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg'', from 1994 to 2010, and previously hosted PBS series ''In Search of the Real America'' and ''Ben Wattenberg At Large''.


Personal life

Wattenberg was the son of real-estate attorney Judah Wattenberg and Rachel Gutman Wattenberg. He was the younger brother of actress
Rebecca Schull Rebecca Schull (née Wattenberg; born February 22, 1929) is an American stage, film, and television actress, best known for her role as Fay Cochran in the NBC sitcom '' Wings'' (1990–1997). Life and career Schull was born in New York City, the ...
. He had four children, Ruth,
Daniel Daniel commonly refers to: * Daniel (given name), a masculine given name and a surname * List of people named Daniel * List of people with surname Daniel * Daniel (biblical figure) * Book of Daniel, a biblical apocalypse, "an account of the acti ...
and Sarah with his first wife, the former Marna Hade who died in 1997, and Rachel with his second wife, Diane Abelman. Wattenberg died on June 28, 2015, from complications following surgery.


Bibliography

* ''This U.S.A.'', 1965 * ''The Real Majority: An Extraordinary Examination of the American Electorate'', 1970 * ''The Real America'', 1974 * ''Against All Enemies: A Novel'', co-authored with Ervin S. Duggan 1977 * ''The Good News is, the Bad News is Wrong'', 1984 * ''The Birth Dearth'', 1987 * ''The First Universal Nation'', 1991 * ''Values Matter Most'', 1995 * '' The First Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America 1900–2000'', co-authored with Theodore Caplow and Louis Hicks, 2000 * ''Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future'', 2004 * ''Fighting Words: A Tale of How Liberals Created Neo-Conservatism'', 2008


Filmography

* '' Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism'' (2005)


References


External links

*
Official ''PBS Think Tank'' Page

Ben Wattenberg
Archive of columns published on
Jewish World Review ''Jewish World Review'' is a politically conservative, online magazine updated Monday through Friday (except for legal holidays and holy days), which seeks to appeal to "people of faith and those interested in learning more about contemporary ...
.
American Enterprise Institute Bio Page
*
Open to Greatness: We need immigrants


Critique of Wattenberg's fertility analysis.
John Kerry Is Wrong: Vietnam vs. Iraq

''Booknotes'' interview with Wattenberg on ''The First Universal Nation'', January 6, 1991.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wattenbeg, Ben 1933 births 2015 deaths 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American demographers American Enterprise Institute American male journalists American male non-fiction writers American political commentators American political writers American television journalists Hobart and William Smith Colleges alumni Jewish American journalists Jewish American non-fiction writers Journalists from New York City Mathematicians from New York (state) Neoconservatism New York (state) Democrats PBS people Writers from the Bronx