Campaign 2012 - 9780815721987

Ready or not, the quadrennial run for the White House is upon us. American voters face a very different landscape than they did four years ago, when the presidential race was relatively wide open and neither the sitting president nor vice president was seeking the nation's highest office. Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qadaffi are gone, but so are millions of American jobs. It is springtime in much of the Arab world, but for many voters this is the winter of their discontent. Governing the United States will be supremely difficult for whoever emerges in November 2012 ?reading this book would be a good first step.

Campaign 2012: Twelve Independent Ideas for Improving American Public Policy is anindispensable guide to the key questions facing White House hopefuls in 2012. It features a dozen accessible yet authoritative analyses, each one focusing on a specificpolicy issue currently vexing the nation. All of the authors are Brookings scholars. Inaddition to contributing a chapter on terrorism, editor Benjamin Wittes draws fromeach of the Brookings Institution's research programs in this wide-ranging survey ofnational policy in America.

Among the Brookings authors lending their expertise is Ron Haskins ( Creating anOpportunity Society) on fiscal policy. Michael O'Hanlon, coauthor of 2010's Toughingit Out in Afghanistan, discusses America's next moves in South Asia, while bestsellingauthor Kenneth Pollack teams with Shadi Hamid in analyzing the Middle East,particularly the Arab Spring. Alice Rivlin, former director of both the CongressionalBudget Office and the president's Office of Management and Budget, examineshealth care issues.

As the presidential contest heats up, an increasingly disgruntled public's focus ondomestic politics will intensify. Former White House policy adviser William Galstonopines on possible political and institutional reform. Hot-button domestic issues,such as health care and housing, come under the microscope as well. Economist TedGayer discusses America's options regarding energy and climate while Bruce Katz,director for metropolitan policy, takes a fresh crack at "Rethinking Federalism."

The capstone of a major institution-wide initiative, Campaign 2012 truly is Brookingsat its best ?explaining tough problems in accessible terms, and proposing viablesolutions. It is one-stop shopping for citizens in need of a primer on the issues thatwill drive the 2012 presidential campaign.