Episode 156 with guests Gene Sperling, Peter Carlin and Kevin Morris

Gene Sperling, Peter Carline and Kevin Morris are our guests this week.
Show produced by Katherine Caperton.
Original Air Date: June 21, 2014 on SiriusXM “POTUS” Channel 124.
PoliOptics airs on POTUS on Saturdays at 8 am & 6 pm, Sundays at 4 am & 5 pm and Mondays at 2 am.
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Show also available for download on Apple iTunes and other streaming services.

For much of the last 25 years, Gene Sperling has been in and around the corridors of power or advising people trying to populate those very corridors. Now, he’s taking a breather after leaving the Obama Administration earlier this year, where he served as Chair of President Obama’s National Economic Council. Gene offers his perspective on message discipline, job creation, the challenges of being a second term President and the joy of being a doting dad. Gene  knows more about the intersection of policy, politics, communications and image then most anyone you can find.

Author Peter Carlin has written about rock icons Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney and most recently Bruce Springsteen, in “Bruce” . He talks about the power of the messages in Bruce’s songs from Darkness on the Edge of Town to The River, Atlantic City, The Rising and Land of Hope and Dreams.  He explains Bruce’s coming to terms with his own politics at first focusing on the every day dreams of working people to broader issues of the day to being drawn into the 1984 Presidential campaign after the appropriation of his song “Born in the U.S.A.” by Ronald Reagan to jumping into the 2008 Presidential race full throttle. Carlin tips us off that he’s working on a Paul Simon biography, which of course brings to mind then Senator Al Gore’s 1992 campaign anthem, “You Can Call Me Al.”

Hollywood power broker Kevin Morris represents some of the biggest names in Hollywood even though (and maybe because) he is decidedly un-Hollywood. His clients, including Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame, as well as Mathew McConaughy and other luminaries swear by him. But in the midst of putting together the landmark South Park digital rights deal and other high profile deal making, Kevin has crafted what Krikus Reviews called, “A clear-eyed, finely wrought and mordantly funny take on a modern predicament by a new writer with loads of talent.” Kevin explains how he came to “White Man’s Problems” a collection of nine short stories addressing the preoccupations of white males at various stages of life. Kevin takes us through his working class boyhood in SE Pennsylvania through his awakening at Cornell through his befriending and representing Hollywood heavyweights to how he was inspired to write this collection.

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