Published January 30, 2005
The New York Times Magazine
Purple is the color of Andrew Stern's life. He wears, almost exclusively, purple shirts, purple jackets and purple caps. He carries a purple duffel bag and drinks bottled water with a purple label, emblazoned with the purple logo of the Service Employees International Union, of which Stern is president. There are union halls in America where a man could get himself hurt wearing a lilac shirt, but the S.E.I.U. is a different kind of union, rooted in the new service economy.
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Published November 21, 2004
The New York Times Magazine
5:30 a.m.
One of the worst days of Steve Bouchard's 36 years on the planet began, as it would end, in a bleak, second-floor banquet room on Main Street in Columbus. Someone must have thought the exposed brick walls and copper piping would give the room a contemporary feel, but the effect was undone by a sad little mirror ball overhanging a miniature dance floor. ''This is what I'm talking about,'' Bouchard said, sipping from a takeout coffee cup and gesturing at the lights.
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Published October 31, 2004
The New York Times Magazine
It seems increasingly likely that even under ideal circumstances -- one man wins the presidency, the other gracefully concedes and the anchors sign off in time for ''Seinfeld'' reruns -- roughly half the country will emerge from Tuesday's election suspecting that it was stolen. And nothing about this particular campaign has been ideal. No matter which man, George W.
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Published October 10, 2004
The New York Times Magazine
As New York and Washington were under attack on Sept. 11, 2001, a film crew happened to come upon John Kerry leaving the Capitol. The brief moment of footage, included in a BBC documentary called ''Clear the Skies,'' tells us something, perhaps, about Kerry in a crisis. The camera captures Congressional aides and visitors, clearly distraught and holding onto one another, streaming down the back steps of the Capitol building in near panic, following the bellowed instructions of anxious police.
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Published July 25, 2004
The New York Times Magazine
Andy Rappaport made his millions as a venture capitalist, searching out what he calls ''ideas that change the world.'' About six years ago, for instance, when most everyone else in the high-tech industry thought wireless communication was going to depend on new, exotic semiconductors, Rappaport threw $2.5 million into a start-up called Atheros Communications, whose founders were focusing instead on building low-cost radios using common chip technology. It was a smart move.
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Published April 25, 2004
The New York Times Magazine
Republicans in Clark County, Ohio, held their annual Lincoln Day fund-raising dinner in February, at a rustic golf club surrounded by an ocean of farmland. Clark County, comprising both the city of Springfield and a block of agricultural townships, is one of those fast-disappearing places where Republican and Democratic voters are still more or less in balance. Al Gore won here in 2000, but by less than a percentage point. This year, Republicans have declared Clark to be one of their target counties.
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Published January 18, 2004
The New York Times Magazine
The job pays 60 bucks for less than two hours' work, which is why eight ordinary Iowans are willing to come, a week before Christmas, to a dingy strip plaza on the outskirts of Des Moines to answer questions from a man they have never met. The five women and three men, seated around a table in an oppressive little room with fluorescent lights, have only two things in common: they all plan to vote in Iowa's Democratic presidential caucuses, and each one is still trying to figure out which candidate to vote for.
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