In an article from our forthcoming print issue, Dayo Olopade reviews the mound of briefing books various groups have prepared in attempt to set a policy agenda for president-elect Obama:
No fewer than 20 progressive think tanks, issue groups, media outlets, and ad-hoc coalitions have already or will soon release presidential transition plans. These open letters to the next president boast sweeping and ambitious titles: "Investing in America's Future"; Mandate for Change; "Opportunity '08"; Rebooting America; "Making Sense"; "Transitions in Governance" -- as do their sponsors: the Campaign for America's Future, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Progressive Policy Institute, the New America Foundation, USAction, the journal Democracy, the Brookings Institution. Even the Heritage Foundation has a "to-do list." (Don't try to mix and match.) "There will be dozens and dozens of these things," says Peter Wallison, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute once rumored to be on the shortlist for a McCain Cabinet.
And Sarah Posner has the latest on the religious right:
In the bowels of the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Washington last Friday, as the G20 met across town and the Republican Governors' Association assembled in Florida, the activist elites of the conservative movement gathered to plot their resurgence. The Council for National Policy (CNP), founded in the early 1980s by the power brokers who brought together cold warriors, moral majoritarians, John Birchers, dispensationalists, anti-government libertarians, free-enterprise zealots, and national-security hawks under one roof, has long been the incubator for the conservative movement's political strategy, and an essential stop for Republican presidential aspirants.
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--The Editors
