Thomas Ferguson is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His books include Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems and Right Turn: The Decline of the Democrats and the Future of American Politics. He is a member of the advisory board for George Soros' Institute for New Economic Thinking and a contributing editor to The Nation.

Dr. Jacob Hacker is a Professor of Political Science at Yale University, a Resident Fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and a Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. An expert on the politics of U.S. health and social policy, he is author of The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream, The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States, and is also co-author of Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy. His latest book, with Paul Pierson, is Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class.

C. Christine Fair is a professor in the Center for Peace and Security Studies within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, she served as a political officer to the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and as a senior research associate in USIP’s Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. She is also a senior fellow with the Counter Terrorism Center at West Point. She has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books including Treading Softly on Sacred Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations on Sacred Space, The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan, and Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of U.S. Internal Security Assistance.

Paul Blumenthal is the senior writer at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan organization which uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Blumenthal focuses his attention on the intersection between influence and politics in Washington. His work has been featured by National Public Radio, PBS' Frontline, The New York Review of Books and The New York Times.

Paul Pierson is Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley. His most recent books are Off-Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy, co-authored by Jacob Hacker, Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis and The Transformation of American Politics: Activist Government and the Rise of Conservatism. His latest book, with Jacob Hacker, is Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class.

John G. Geer is Distinguished Professor and Chair of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. His book In Defense of Negativity: Attacks Ads in Presidential Campaigns won the 2008 Goldsmith Book prize from Harvard University. Professor Geer is currently working on a series of projects that looks at the news media's coverage of attack advertising and how negativity may help voters make better choices.

Erika Franklin Fowler is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, where she teaches courses in American Politics, media and politics, campaigns and elections, public opinion, and empirical methods. She also directs the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks and analyzes all political advertisements aired on television in real-time throughout the 2010 election cycle. Fowler specializes in political communication - local media and campaign advertising in particular - and her work on local news coverage of politics and policy has been published in political science, communication, law/policy, and medical journals.