Reclaiming politics.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: EDITOR'S NOTE

Hard to believe there's more than a year to go before the 2016 presidential election. The campaigns are in full swing, as seventeen candidates, at last count, jockey to grab the wheel in the Republican primary clown car. Bernie Sanders is giving Hillary Clinton a scare with big rallies across the country. And labor unions, citizens groups, and ordinary people are trying to figure out how to have any voice at all in our increasingly money-dominated electoral process.

We cover all of these corners of the political landscape in this issue of the magazine.

Our Associate Editor Bill Lueders contributes a big feature on one of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination, Scott Walker, whom he covered for years as a member of the capitol press corps in Wisconsin. Bill shares his insights on the governor who, with the enthusiastic backing of a national network of rightwing billionaires, turned his home state into a petri dish for an aggressively divisive brand of politics. Now he's taking his "divide and conquer" strategy nationwide.

Walker appeals to Republican primary voters with his combination of rightwing policy positions and his aw-shucks, regular-guy demeanor. Bill, who spent time interviewing Walker and observing him up close, describes what it's like to fall under his spell, how he operates, and why it's a mistake to underestimate him.

On the other side of the political divide, grassroots activist Mike McCabe, also in Wisconsin, has been devoting his considerable energy to the central problem of American politics: How do regular people reclaim our democracy?

I chose McCabe's book, Blue Jean Nation, as one of the best of the year in 2014. In it, he chronicled how FDR Democrats in poor, rural towns like the one where he grew up became Tea Party Republicans, and why so many people are either voting against their own interests or simply not voting at all...