Raymond Barone (Ray Romano)

Ray Romano plays the role of Raymond Barone, the favorite child of Frank Barone (Peter Boyle) and Marie Barone (Doris Roberts). He is married to Debra Barone (Patricia Heaton) and has three children, Michael and Geoffrey Barone (Sullivan and Sawyer Sweeten) and Alexandra (Ally) Barone (Madylin Sweeten). Ray grew up in a unbalanced household where one parent nourtured, sometimes to an extreme, while the other tried to mess up his wife's work. This may have led to him having psychological weaknesses. Raymond barely helps out his wife (Debra) around the house or with the kids, partially due to the fact that he is a sportswriter and is on the road a lot with professional sports teams covering the games. When he is around, he just watches television. Ray and Debra are constantly being bothered by Frank and Marie, who continuously "barge" into their house uninvited. This leaves him to wonder why he even moved in across the street from them in the first place. But Ray welcomes his father and brother in sometimes to watch the game with him. Ray has a fear of confronting his mother when she does things that annoy him. The psychological hold that his mother has on him puzzles Debra sometimes. Ray has little concern for important material. For example, one episode shows Ray taping over their wedding video with a Super Bowl from the early-90's.

Everybody Loves Raymond

Everybody Loves Raymond, sometimes referred to as Raymond, is a long-running American sitcom broadcast on CBS from 1996 to 2005.

The show revolved around the life of Italian-American Ray Barone, a newspaper sportswriter from Lynbrook, Long Island who lives with his wife, Debra Barone, his daughter, Ally, and his identical twin sons, Geoffrey and Michael. Ray's brash parents and jealous self-doubting brother Robert never give Ray or his family a moment of peace. Ray often finds himself in the middle of someone else's problems. He is usually the one blamed for everyone else's troubles.

Almanac of American Politics

The Almanac of American Politics is a reference work published biennially by the National Journal Group. It aims to provide a detailed look at the politics of the United States through an approach of profiling individual leaders and areas of the country.

The Almanac is broken down alphabetically by state, with each congressional district in each state profiled separately. The Almanac provides a large amount of information, including:

Demographic information on each district, including income, racial distribution, and other statistics
Profiles of the Congressperson from each district, including voting record on key votes, interest group ratings, etc.
Individually written profiles of each district, commissioned for the Almanac
In addition, an overview look at each state is given, including prospects for the upcoming presidential election and demographic trends.

The Almanac is several thousand pages long, and quite hefty, even in paperback. It was first published in 1972. Originally, the three main editors were Michael Barone, now a writer at U.S. News and World Report, Grant Ujifusa and Douglas Matthews. Matthews did not contribute after the 1980 edition. The 2004 and 2006 editions were authored by Barone and Richard E. Cohen, the congressional correspondent for the National Journal and edited by Charles Mahtesian.

Michael Barone (pundit)

Michael Barone is a political analyst and commentator. He is best known for being the principal author of the Almanac of American Politics, a reference work concerning US governors and federal politicians, and published biannually by National Journal. The Almanac contains documentation on the history, demographics, and political culture of each state and congressional district. Mr. Barone is a regular television commentator on U.S. elections and political trends.
Career
Mr. Barone is a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and a frequent contributor for the Fox News Channel. He is also a non-regular guest panelist on the NBC TV program The McLaughlin Group. Barone's stated political views are generally conservative. He has said he is not a religious believer, although he is sympathetic to and respectful of socially conservative religious believers.

One of the emphases of his commentary has been immigration. Perhaps partly as a result of his being a descendant of Italian immigrants, Barone takes an optimistic view of contemporary immigration into the US. He says that Hispanic immigration has parallels to the Italian experience and that, given the right circumstances, that current and future Hispanic and other immigrants can become Americanized and assimilated, just as the Italians were.

Debra Barone (Patricia Heaton)

The nagging wife of Ray Barone, Debra grew up in Connecticut to loving, caring, and rich parents Warren and Lois, who have traveled all around the world since Debra left them. When Debra Barone met Carrie Heffernan, from another CBS hit, The King of Queens, it made for an interesting King of Queens episode and Debra quickly found a reason to become upset with Ray after noticing Carrie was upset with her husband, Doug Heffernan.

After learning she was pregnant with twins, Debra brought up the issue that she and Ray would need to move in a bigger home, as they would now have three children. Once Ray's parents learned of this, Frank showed the married couple a nice home across the street from two lovely neighbors, who just happened to be Marie and Frank themselves. Ray at first didn't want to buy the home, but Debra convinced him and they soon realized what a living hell they would be in.

Debra often gossips about Ray's family behind their backs because of all their annoying quirks. She mostly gossips about Marie who gives her the hardest time. Marie often barges into Debra's home insinuating how bad a housewife and homemaker she is. Most of Marie's nasty insinuations are aimed at Debra's cooking. However, Marie has always been a world class cook and Debra is notorious for making lousy food. Other than Lemon Chicken (the first dish Debra ever made for Ray), her only other decent dish is braciole, which Ray likes. Though she made one good meal once, it was soon revealed that braciole was the same meal Marie made when Frank proposed, and out of respect for Marie, Debra stopped making braciole. Other things Marie criticizes are Debra's parental skills and housekeeping. Marie often rewashes the kids and spends her days cleaning Debra's house all over again.

Instead of sex, Debra enjoys reading before going to bed. She is also active in the school PTA. In spite of her constant complaining and nagging, Debra really does love her family and yes, even Frank and Marie. Debra defended Ray once when he was "being beat up by the Cookie Lady," Peggy (Amy Aquino). Debra and Marie are known to take each other's sides on many issues as well. Debra is a very caring mother but a critical wife. Debra's maiden name is Whalen.

Governor

A governor or governour (archaic) is a governing official, usually the executive (at least nominally, to different degrees also politically and administratively) of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the Head of state; furthermore the title applies to officials with a similar mandate as representatives of a chartered company which has been granted exercise of sovereignty, even with its own armed forces, in a colonial area, often both colonizing and exploiting, sometimes a major state within the state, such as the British HEIC or the Dutch VOC.

In federations a governor can be the title of each appointed or (as in the US) elected politician who governs a constitutive state. Most countries in the world have some sort of official known or rendered as "governor," though in some countries the heads of the constitutive states, provinces, communities and regions may have a different title. This is particularly common in European nations and many of their former colonies, with titles such as President of the Regional Council in France and minister-president in Germany. Other countries using different titles for sub-national units include Spain, Italy and Switzerland.

There can also be non-political governors: high ranking officials in private or similar governance such as commercial and non-profit management, styled governor(s), who simply govern an institution, such as a corporation or a bank. For example, in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries there are prison governors ("warden" in the United States), school governors and bank governors.

Robert Barone (Brad Garrett)

Most of the jokes are aimed at how Robert is never able to find success and how his love life never picks up. Robert was conceived out of wedlock; one episode features Robert's discovery of that. Standing at 6' 8 1/2", he is the tallest Barone. It may be noted that he has a nervous habit of touching food to his chin before eating it (commonly known as the "Crazy Chin" habit), and this habit is often the center of many jokes. Robert is a caring uncle and still deeply cares for little brother Raymond, no matter how much jealousy he has.

After divorcing his first wife Joanne, Robert became a workaholic and was acknowledged by the NYPD for never being absent one day of his career. Robert was an exceptional cop, once stopping an armed robbery at Nemo's Pizza while Ray hid under a table; in another episode he is gored in the backside by a bull, forcing him to move back into his parents' house for several episodes. Robert's work partner is an African-American woman named Judy; she memorably introduced him to the dance club scene in one episode. Robert's diverse skills as a police officer even got him an interview with the FBI; However, his mother interfered in the interview process, and he was passed over for the position (though the FBI interviewer admitted that she had little to do with the actual denial.) He soon pursued early retirement to become an alarms salesman after a traumatic injury, but thanks to Ray's help, he returned to the NYPD as a Captain.

Robert dated Debra's best friend Amy MacDougall for several years and they have broken up several times. When Robert went with the Barones to a family trip in Italy, he had a small connection to an Italian girl named Stefania, who later immigrated to America, leading to one of his break-ups with Amy. Another occurred when Amy discovered Robert had been considering getting back together with his ex-wife. After a bad date with yet another woman, Robert ran into Amy in a bar and they soon got back together and married in 2003. In 2004 they purchased Frank and Marie's home, but they had to welcome Marie and Frank back in when they were kicked out of a retirement community in New Jersey.

Robert is also very jealous of his brother Raymond, who was favored by their mother, and also earned great success in life, becoming a sportswriter and winning many awards. Though they have this sibling rivalry and Robert's jealousy can confound matters, Ray and Robert are easily each other's closest friend. Even though his father, Frank, favors him over Raymond, he would prefer to be favored by his rejecting mother, Marie. There are times when Frank and Robert enjoy each others company, especially when they join together to make fun of Raymond.

Marie Barone (Doris Roberts)

The very intrusive mother of Raymond and Robert, and wife to Frank, Marie is an Italian-American housemom who excels in cooking, cleaning, and other things dealing with keeping a good home and bringing up a nurturing and caring family.

Except for Frank, everyone in the family has a hard time standing up to Marie because of her guilt-tripping, especially Debra. In addition to being a profound worrier, one of Marie's trademark acts is to be outwardly helpful and sweet, but in the most passive-agressive, insulting way, especially with her daughter-in-law. Marie often barges into Debra's house and gives her cooking and cleaning tips, despite having never been asked. Whenever something smells strange, she'll immediately ask if Debra is cooking anything. Marie also criticizes Debra's housekeeping and often rewashes all of the clothes and vacuums the house even though Debra has already done it. Being overly sensitive, Marie at one point refused to speak to Debra for weeks, which resulted in several episodes interlocking with each other because of it.

Beyond this, Marie smothers Raymond and is generally neglectful to Robert: when asked where Robert was when she fed baby Ray, she mumbled "I dunno". She does outrageous and often insane things to Ray and defends this by claiming she does it "out of love". Several of her actions have had a traumatizing effect on Ray's psyche, such as reading his childhood journal and complaining to Ray about Frank's behavior on a weekly basis when he was young. Although these actions are met with extreme outrage from Ray, these also hurt Robert who wonders why she didn't do any of them to him (even if she did something wrong).

In addition to Marie's typically insulting way of being nice, she also has a history of making matters worse, usually by blowing small matters out of proportion. One of the worst mistakes she ever made was accidentally backing her car into Ray and Debra's home. Another was standing up to object at Robert's wedding, to ensure he was marrying Amy for love, and not because he felt pressured to do so.

Marie and Frank live at 319 Fowler in Lynbrook. There actually is a Fowler Avenue in the town, but the addresses do not go that high. The houses used for the exterior shots of the two Barone households are really across the street from each other but actually are located in North Merrick.

Ann Coulter

Coulter has gained notoriety as a political commentator who combines strongly partisan analysis and a willingness to use insult humor and sometimes plain insults against people she feels (not excluding herself) behave foolishly or wrongly. When asked by Brian Lamb how she would characterize her politics, she replied, "Conservative...evidently [which] means I believe in a being even higher than The New York Times, which could make me a member of the religious right, especially when you throw in that I would like taxes cut," and added, "I'd roll back the government probably as far as [libertarians] would."

Television
Coulter's first national media appearance came after she was hired in 1996 by MSNBC as a legal correspondent. Time magazine said this about her tenure there:

The network dismissed her at least twice: first in February 1997, after she insulted the late Pamela Harriman, the U.S. Ambassador to France, even as the network was covering her somber memorial service.... Even so, the network missed Coulter's jousting and quickly rehired her.
Eight months later, Coulter's relationship with MSNBC ended permanently after she tangled with a disabled Vietnam veteran on the air. Robert Muller, co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, asserted that "in 90% of the cases that U.S. soldiers got blown up [in Vietnam]—Ann, are you listening?—they were our own mines." (Muller was misquoting a 1969 Pentagon report that found that 90% of the components used in enemy mines came from U.S. duds and refuse.) Coulter, who found Muller's statement laughable, averted her eyes and responded sarcastically: "No wonder you guys lost." It became an infamous—and oft-misreported—Coulter moment.

But her troubles with MSNBC only freed her to appear on CNN and Fox News Channel, whose producers were often calling.


Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post made a point to respond to the Time article to explain that his widely quoted misreporting of Coulter's reply to the veteran in an article he wrote had its origin in Coulter's own later recollection of the incident. Describing his previous story, Kurtz added, "I did note that, according to Coulter, the vet was appearing by satellite, and she didn't know he was disabled."

She has made frequent guest appearances on television, including The Today Show, Hannity and Colmes, The O'Reilly Factor, American Morning, Crossfire, Real Time, Politically Incorrect, and the fifth estate.

In 2005, Coulter appeared as one of a three-person judging panel in The Greatest American, a four-part interactive television event for the Discovery Channel hosted by Matt Lauer. Starting with 100 nominees, each week interactive viewer voting eliminated candidates.

Films
Coulter has appeared in four movies. She made her first movie appearance in 2004, when she appeared in three movies. The first was Feeding the Beast, which was a made-for-TV documentary on the "24-Hour News Revolution". The other two movies were FahrenHYPE 9/11, a direct to video documentary designed to rebut Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, and Is It True What They Say About Ann?, a documentary on Coulter containing clips of interviews and speeches.

In 2006, Coulter refused permission to include a scene featuring herself and Al Franken in a debate in Connecticut in Franken's film, Al Franken: God Spoke.


Radio
Ann Coulter has been a frequent guest on many talk radio shows, including Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mike Gallagher, and others.


Books
Coulter is the author of five books. All have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Her first book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (ISBN 0-89526-113-8), was published by Regnery Publishing in 1998. The book details Coulter's case for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Her second book, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (ISBN 1-4000-4661-0), published by Crown Forum in 2002, remained number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for seven weeks. In Slander, Coulter argues that President George W. Bush faced an unfair battle for positive media coverage.

Her third book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (ISBN 1-4000-5030-8), also published by Crown Forum, defends the presidency of Richard M. Nixon and claims Democratic politicians and the media have treasonously undermined United States foreign policy. She also claims that Annie Lee Moss was correctly identified by Joseph McCarthy as a Communist. Treason was published in 2003, and spent 13 weeks on the Best Seller list.
Crown Forum published a collection of Coulter's columns in 2004 as her fourth book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter (ISBN 1-4000-5418-4).

Coulter's fifth book, published by Crown Forum in 2006, is Godless: The Church of Liberalism (ISBN 1-4000-5420-6). Coulter argues, first, that liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, and second, that it bears all the attributes of a religion itself. Godless debuted at #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list.


Columns

Portrait of Ann Coulter on the cover of Time Magazine (April, 2005). Coulter felt the photo chosen was unflattering and believed it was deliberately chosen for that reason because she is a conservative.[28]In the late 1990s, Coulter's weekly (biweekly from 1999-2000) syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate began appearing and today is printed in more than 100 newspapers nationwide and is featured on many well-known conservative websites, including Frontpagemag.com, Townhall.com and WorldNetDaily. Her syndicator says, "Ann's client newspapers stick with her because she has a loyal fan base of conservative readers who look forward to reading her columns in their local newspapers."[29] Her column is also permanently linked to on the Drudge Report web page, a site with 10 million hits a day, and has been for many years.

In 1999, Coulter worked for a time as a regular columnist for George magazine. Coulter also wrote exclusive weekly columns between 1998 and 2003 for the conservative magazine Human Events and continues to write an occasional legal column for it, in which she discusses judicial rulings, constitutional issues, and legal matters affecting Congress and the executive branch. Coulter was the subject of a Time magazine cover story in April 2005.

Her columns are invariably highly critical of liberals and Democrats. In one she wrote:

This year's Democratic plan for the future is another inane sound bite designed to trick American voters into trusting them with national security.
To wit, they're claiming there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and while they're all for the war against terror — absolutely in favor of that war — they are adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. You know, the war where the U.S. military is killing thousands upon thousands of terrorists (described in the media as "Iraqi civilians", even if they are from Jordan, like the now-dead leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). That war.

Negative reactions from publishers
In 2001, as a contributing editor and syndicated columnist for National Review Online (NRO), Coulter was asked by editors to make changes to a piece written after the September 11 attacks. On the national television show Politically Incorrect, Coulter accused NRO of censorship and claimed she was paid $5 per article. NRO dropped her column and terminated her editorship. Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of NRO, said, "We did not 'fire' Ann for what she wrote ... we ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship, and loyalty [concerning the editing disagreement]."

Coulter contracted with USA Today to cover the 2004 Democratic National Convention. She wrote one article that began, "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston..." and referred to some unspecified female attendees as "corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons." The newspaper declined to print the article citing an editing dispute over "basic weaknesses in clarity and readability that we found unacceptable." An explanatory article by the paper went on to say "Coulter told the online edition of Editor & Publisher magazine that 'USA Today doesn't like my "tone," humor, sarcasm, etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them.'" USA Today replaced Coulter with Jonah Goldberg, and Coulter published it instead on her website.

In August 2005, the Arizona Daily Star dropped Coulter's syndicated column citing reader complaints that "Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives."

Following the publication of her fourth best-selling book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, in July 2006, some newspapers replaced her column with those of other conservative columnists:

The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, announced that it was replacing Coulter's column with that of David Limbaugh, stating that, "the complaints that mattered the most were from the conservative readers."
The Augusta Chronicle of Augusta, Georgia explained that they felt that her "stridency" had crossed the line.
The Shreveport Times announced that they were considering dropping Ann Coulter in favor of another conservative columnist because "She is more about entertainment and self-promotion," and that they had "come close" before.
Yes! Weekly of Greensboro, North Carolina replaced her column with that of William F. Buckley due to plagiarism allegations as well as her comments on 9/11 widows, with readers' responses to the question running two to one for replacing her. The editor wrote, "Sure, there will be some who bemoan her absence from our pages and others who will question my decision to pull from our ranks a writer whose book currently sits atop the New York Times bestseller list. And they may have a point -- she's sold a lot of books. But I'm not gonna be helping her do it anymore. So goodbye, Ann. It's been a wild ride."

Frank Barone (Peter Boyle)

Frank Barone has lived in Lynbrook, Long Island, New York for most of his life and is of Italian heritage. His father (originally named Albert but was later renamed Joe) came to the United States and changed his name to Barone, causing much confusion when Raymond and Ally attempted to contact Frank's aunt Serena, still in Italy. The actual family name is unknown.

Frank is the one member of the Barone family who will unleash anything that is on his mind. Always derogatory and very derisive, Frank insults Marie and even uses names like Nancy and Shirley to describe men (mostly Ray and Robert) who are not macho enough. He often hangs out at the Lodge, where lodge policy (or tradition; it is not definitively explained) is to swim naked in the pool. Refusing to pay for any kind of repair, Frank also considers himself a general handyman and attempts to make repairs around Ray's household (often with disastrous results).

Frank's pastimes are eating and watching TV. He proclaims Marie is his cook and she often gives in, cooking him things from grilled cheese to ham, but once Ray comes over, Frank has to wait until after Ray gets his hands on the food. Frank will usually eat anything, even if Debra cooked it. Frank often watches television with his pants unzipped and that has become a running gag. When Marie temporarily moved in with Ray and Debra, Frank rented the Arnold Schwarzenegger collection ("Except the one where he gets pregnant.") and discovered salsa.

Frank's behavior often results in many people disliking him. Some of Frank's behavior include keeping score at his granddaughter's t-ball game, holding a record breaking football for ransom, and getting insider information on sporting events from Ray and betting on them. Despite his transgressions, Frank is a very passionate man and has a passion for dancing. He also deeply cares for Marie as he admitted when she said they had a "loveless marriage." Some of Frank's more tender moments involve taking the fall for Debra when Marie loses a sentimental item or handing Ray money to take his children to the zoo. During a moment of father-son bonding, Raymond and Robert discover that their grandfather was a physically abusive disciplinarian towards Frank, and that Frank had vowed never to be like him with his own children. This cast their father's abrasive and derisive behavior toward them in a new light and drew the trio imperceptibly closer. The cast often makes jokes about Frank's being fat and bald as well as of the way he smells. He brushes these jokes off with complete acceptance of his slovenly behavior and his trademark "Holy crap!"'

In one episode where Frank gives brightly-wrapped condoms ("things") to trick-or-treaters, he is dressed as Frankenstein's monster. Peter Boyle previously starred in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (1974), playing the monster.