John Avlon is a CNN political analyst and Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast. He is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and Wingnuts: Extremism in the Age of Obama as well as an editor of the anthology Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columnists. He won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' award for best online column in 2012. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, where he and his team were responsible for writing the eulogies for firefighters and police officers killed in the destruction of the World Trade Center.