Jules Witcover

Jules Witcover
Witcover, Ronald Reagan and Jack Germond in Oval Office in 1981
Born	Jules Joseph Witcover (1927-07-16) July 16, 1927 (age 89) Union City, New Jersey
Nationality	American
Occupation	Journalist, author

Jules Joseph Witcover (born July 16, 1927) is an American journalist, author, and columnist.

Witcover is a veteran newspaperman of 50 years' standing, having written for The Baltimore Sun, the now-defunct Washington Star, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. Together with Jack Germond, Witcover co-wrote "Politics Today," a five-day-a-week syndicated column, for over 24 years.

Witcover was born in Union City, New Jersey. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, author and H.L. Mencken scholar Marion Elizabeth Rodgers.

Witcover began working in Washington for Newhouse Newspapers in 1954. He was reportedly steps away from where Robert F. Kennedy was shot in 1968. He was also one of the reporters featured in the 1972 book on campaign journalism, The Boys on the Bus, and eventually came to be seen as a "journalistic institution," according to media critic Howard Kurtz.

His most recent book is The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power. Published in 2014, Kirkus Reviews described the work as a “valuable book of American history.” Other recent work includes Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Nixon & Agnew, Public Affairs (2007), and Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption.

In March 2008, his history of campaign finance reform, "The Longest Campaign," appeared on the Center for Public Integrity's The Buying of the President 2008 website.

Witcover assumed the mantle of Theodore H. White, producing the definitive chronicle of the 1976 presidential campaign, Marathon, and then following with books on every contest from 1980 through 1992 (these four co-authored with Jack W. Germond). In the 1990s and 2000s, he became increasingly preoccupied with the mechanics of national campaigns—authoring works on the Vice Presidency, political consultants and fundraising—as well as political history and biography.