How Obama Learned to Win

In the new dead-tree TIME, our colleague Michael Weisskopf explores Barack Obama's political roots in Chicago, which is where the likely Democratic nominee learned what it felt like to lose and what it takes to win. Michael brings a special understanding to rough-and-tumble Chicago politics and its crosscurrents of ethnic identity. A lifelong White Sox fan who grew up on the South Side, Weisskopf says he learned he was Jewish as a kindergartener--under a pile of Catholic kids.

His cover story is worth a read.