Thomas Edsall is an American journalist and academic, best known for his 25 years covering politics for the Washington Post.  He holds the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professorship in Public Affairs Journalism at Columbia University, and writes an online 2012 election column for the New York Times. In addition, he is a correspondent for The New Republic, and the author of Chain Reaction, a Pulitzer Prize finalist (1992), The New Politics of Equality (1984), and Building Red America (2006), among other works.  Edsall is also the winner of the Carey McWilliams Award of the American Political Science Association.  Mr. Edsall lives in New York and Washington, D.C. with his wife, Mary.