As part of his 2011 Election Road Trip from Texas to Minnesota, Joe Klein of Time Magazine stopped by for a conversation at the Clinton School last Wednesday.
Klein discussed how the events of 9/11 and its aftermath pulled him out of an early retirement. Since then he has spent most of his time reporting from overseas, traveling to Afghanistan four times in the last 10 years.
He also discussed the motivations of doing his road trips, the first of which he completed last year, traveling from the west to east coasts and making stops in between based on where readers asked him to make an appearance. He stressed the importance of his trip being dictated by the readers themselves.
Klein spent time on many varying topics, jumping from a discussion on Hispanic activism groups to one on the Republican presidential debates that are taking place around the country in preparation for next year’s election.
He also touched briefly on the work for which he is most known, “Primary Colors,” a novel that was born out of his experience covering the 1992 presidential campaign. Klein said he published the novel anonymously in the hopes that it would be judged on its own merits and not on Klein’s personal relationship with the Clintons.
“It is based on the very best politician I’ve met in my 22 years of doing this,” he said.
Below is video of Klein’s Clinton School lecture:
This post was written by Clinton School student Veena Rangaswami (’13).