About

John M. O'Hara is the author of A New American Tea Party, a book chronicling the history and principles of the tea party movement.  He is vice president of external relations at the Illinois Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization dedicated to supporting free market principles and liberty-based public policy initiatives for a better Illinois.  Before joining IPI, O’Hara worked as the assistant director of communications at The Heartland Institute.  Previously, he served as a political appointee under U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao in the administration of George W. Bush.  Prior to that, O’Hara was a Collegiate Network journalism fellow at The American Spectator.  He has been active in political campaigns at the state and federal level, including one presidential campaign.

O’Hara is a contributor to BigGovernment.com and The Daily Caller.  He has appeared as a commentator on a number of local and national radio and television programs including The Dennis Miller Show, Mancow, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Savage Nation, Milt Rosenberg's Extension 720, Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto, America’s Newsroom, Strategy Room, and Fox & Friends, Fox Business Network’s Happy Hour and Cavuto, MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews and Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

For his work with the tea party movement, O'Hara received an inaugural William F. Buckley, Jr. Leadership Award from the Young Conservatives Coalition.  He graduated from Kenyon College with a B.A. in Philosophy and a concentration in the Integrated Program in Humane Studies. He studied ancient philosophy and ethics at King’s College, University of London and he was managing editor of The Kenyon Observer.

Contact John at WriteOHara@gmail.com. To request John for a speaking engagement, contact Jodi Solomon at jodi.solomon.speakers@gmail.com.

"A genuine cat, a very nice guy"
- JON STEWART

"The kind of guy you'd wish would marry your granddaughter"
- G. GORDON LIDDY