ROBERT J. ART analyzes the Sino-American relationship from the standpoint of Washington's and Beijing's interests in East Asia. He finds many points of common interest and concludes that wise policy decisions in both capitals can keep the cooperative aspects of this relationship stronger than the conflictual ones.

CAROLINE J. TOLBERT, AMANDA KELLER, and TODD DONOVAN examine public opinion data on proposals to reform the presidential nominating process. They argue that one way to preserve a role for grassroots politics and the sequential process that is critical for candidate quality is to combine rotating state primaries and caucuses in a dozen small-population states with a national primary in which voters from all states would cast ballots.

COSTAS PANAGOPOULOS discusses the behavior, demographic characteristics, and political preferences of caucus and primary voters in the 2008 presidential nominating contests. He finds that primary voters, as compared to caucus participants, are generally more representative of the electorate overall along most dimensions, although the differences observed tend to be substantively small.

CHRISTOPHER MCGRORY KLYZA and DAVID SOUSA argue that environmental policy in the United States has moved in the direction favored by environmentalists over the last two decades, despite efforts by many conservatives to roll back these policies. This green drift is based on the combination of major environmental laws and institutional structures created in the 1960s and 1970s and frozen in place by the legislative gridlock of the last two decades.

KELLY McHUGH describes Tony Blair's failed attempts to use his friendship with George W. Bush to influence U.S. foreign policy in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war. She finds that although Blair was often successful in persuading Bush in private meetings, he was outmaneuvered by Vice President Dick Cheney, who opposed Blair's advocacy of multilateralism and diplomacy.

ALAN BRINKLEY looks at the evolution of campaign journalism from Theodore White's classic analysis of the 1960 presidential election to John Heilemann and Mark Helperin's recently published Game Change.