John P. Avlon

John P. Avlon, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He served as Director of Speechwriting and Deputy Policy Director for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign. Previously, he was a columnist and associate editor at the New York Sun.

He is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics [Random House, 2004], which was described by Barron’s as “a rewarding portrait of a political trend the established parties have tried to ignore,” and by the Democratic Leadership Council’s Ed Kilgore as “a brave and compelling case for the past persistence and future dominance of American centrism.”

Avlon’s essay on the attacks of September 11, 2001—”The Resilient City,” published in the anthology Empire City: New York Through the Centuries—won acclaim from Fred Siegel, author of The Future Once Happened Here, as “the single best essay written in the wake of 9/11.”

Previously, Avlon was Chief Speechwriter and Deputy Communications Director in the second term of the Giuliani Administration. He was responsible for writing and editing daily speeches for the Mayor on topics including crime fighting strategies, economic development initiatives, e-government implementation, and welfare reform. He served on the staff of the Bilingual Education Reform Task Force and the 2001 Charter Revision Commission, which established the Office of Emergency Management as a permanent city agency.

Avlon has lectured at the Kennedy School of Government, the Citadel, Yale, NYU, City University, the State Department’s visiting journalist program, and civic organizations around the nation. He is a frequent commentator on CNN and FoxNews.

Avlon earned an executive MBA at Columbia University and his BA at Yale University.