In an article from our forthcoming print issue Mark Schmitt explains how patience won Obama the presidency:
A single tactical choice early in Barack Obama's quest for the presidency set the course for all the events that followed -- Obama's securing of the Democratic nomination and surprisingly smooth path to resounding victory in the general election. After Sen. Hillary Clinton defeated him in the New Hampshire primary, rather than pouring resources into the very next primary states, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe looked weeks into the future. He deployed staff to states that wouldn't vote for another month and implemented a long, patient strategy of assembling a majority of delegates, one at a time, in friendly and unfriendly states alike.
And Kevin Connor and Matthew Skomarovsky explore how Larry Summers helped set the groundwork for the housing bubble:
Summers' encouragement of ill-fated asset bubbles was a second major policy failure with direct bearing on the current crisis. At the Clinton Treasury, he pursued a policy of strong support for the overvalued dollar and the rising stock market, remained silent about the downside risks, and made no attempt to rein in the speculative stampede. The subsequent collapse of the dot-com economy was largely a result of these failures.
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--The Editors
