 He was a metro columnist at "The Hartford Courant" and, prior to that, he was the founding editor of "The Hartford Advocate" before joining "The Philadelphia Inquirer" in 1984, where he spent 22 years, most notably as the national political writer/columnist.He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 United States presidential campaigns.His Inquirer column ran from 2004 to 2012.