The Obama Project

The June issue of Chicago Magazine has a feature about the swirl of Obama's past relationships and influences and how they complicate his policy positions in ways that supporters sometimes find hard to pin down:

"Though his policies clearly tilt toward those of the Hyde Park liberals, Obama supporters find strains of the U. of C. in his thinking, notably in an openness to free-market solutions."

For many in Chicago, it's this "strain" of free-market solutions (including charter schools and performance pay) that makes Obama hard to support. Despite a small-scale and relatively careful development process in Chicago, charter schools (and the school closings that have accompanied them) seem as if not more controversial there as they are in any other part of the nation.

Obama's Chicago Posse