Credit tightening in the property industry by the state-dominated banking system hit home for a lot of private companies, which traditionally rely on their own money or on bank loans to fund projects.
It was in 2004 that Colorado Democrats recognized that they could take a major step towards locking in the state for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry if they could succeed in scraping their own winner-take-all system and bring proportional representation to the electoral vote in Colorado.
The chancellor must also contend with the opinions of state governor, city and state assemblies, parents, the teachers' union, and the school system's own 3, 700-person bureaucracy in its Brooklyn headquarters.