Newspaper Article

One Man's Congressional Quest Crosses a Frontier

Ahrens, Frank

1998

Overview

The jet touched down in Anchorage on Friday and Michael Barone stepped onto the snow-covered Alaskan soil for the first time. All around him, people were behaving normally, unaware that they were part of a teeming sea of data. Barone's satisfaction was tinged by a slight sense of anticlimax. In political circles, Barone -- a senior editor at Reader's Digest here in Washington -- is a high priest of statistics and the lucid interpreter of those numbers. His book \"The Almanac of American Politics\" has been called \"the bible of American politics\" by George Will. It is a thick compendium filled with the biographies, liberal and conservative ratings, and key voting records of each state's senators and representatives. More to the point, though, the almanac contains nonpartisan essays on all 435 congressional districts, including historic, geographic and demographic descriptions and summaries of recent elections. For political junkies, journalists and anyone who wants to know what life is like in, say, Oregon's 3rd District, the book is an indispensable desk fixture. Barone, 53, and co-author Grant Ujifusa write the descriptions based on reporting, election results, census data and the accrued experiences of Barone's many travels.

• Publisher: WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post
• Subject: Almanacs / Barone, Michael / Districts / Michael Barone / Politics / Travel