Politics Aside 2010

More than 200 policymakers, civic and business leaders, researchers, and philanthropists gathered around Los Angeles for a weekend of panel discussions, seminars, and conversations collectively known as Politics Aside 2010. RAND organized the events to promote nonpartisan discourse in the wake of the heated election season.

Held in a variety of venues—RAND's headquarters campus, Sony Pictures Studios, the Creative Artists Agency, and nearly a dozen private homes—the wide-ranging conversations throughout the weekend addressed national and global challenges across the policy spectrum. While some participants considered the implications of a nuclear Iran or the media's changing role in informing policy, others pondered the potential consequences of climate change, education reform, health care reform, or the security situation in Mexico. Still other voices shared first-hand experiences, from the frontlines in Afghanistan to the U.S. Gulf Coast during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Proceeds from Politics Aside support RAND's Investment in People and Ideas program, which funds research inquiries into critical but often underappreciated policy areas and helps to attract the world's top talent to focus on these challenges.