Ellie McE

newyorker:

Tonight, President Barack Obama will deliver the final address of the Democratic National Convention. The New Yorker was one of the first national outlets to take a hard look at Obama, back when the question was whether he could win election to the Senate. Here are eight major New Yorker pieces about the President, from 2004 to the current issue:

“The Candidate,” or how the son of a Kenyan economist became an Illinois Everyman: William Finnegan’s piece from the issue of May 31, 2004, about Obama’s Senate campaign.

Larissa Macfarquhar’s Profile of Obama as he began his campaign for President, which appeared in the issue of May 7, 2007, and won a National Magazine Award. At a time when many people thought of the young Senator as a radical activist, Macfarquhar showed that he had always been, as the piece was titled, a “conciliator.”

“Making It,” Ryan Lizza’s piece from the issue of July 21, 2008, about how Chicago politics shaped Obama.

“The Joshua Generation,” David Remnick’s piece from the issue of November 17, 2008, about how the civil-rights movement laid the groundwork for Obama’s Presidential campaign.

“The Consequentialist,” Ryan Lizza’s piece from the issue of May 2, 2011, about how the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy—and the article that introduced the world to the phrase “leading from behind.”

“The Obama Memos,” Ryan Lizza’s analysis of hundreds of pages of internal White House memos that show Obama grappling with the unpleasant choices of government, from the issue of January 30, 2012.

“The Second Term”: Ryan Lizza asks what Obama would do if reelected, from the issue of June 18th.

“Let’s Be Friends”: In the current issue, Ryan Lizza examines the relationship between Obama and Bill Clinton.

1. Photograph by Martin Schoeller. 2. Photograph by Thomas Dworzak. 3. Photograph by Samantha Appleton. 4. Photograph by Marc PoKempner. 5. Photograph by Luke Sharrett.

Required reading.