Spring couldn’t have come soon enough this year. Only a few months ago, with a popular new president entering the White House and a string of proposals on the table to revive the economy, a lot of us thought we would see the first signs of hope that this painful, slow recession could finally be ending.

Then, gridlock. The stimulus plan and the bank bailout stalled, then were watered down. Detroit fretted and fussed about how much money it needed to stave off bankruptcies that now appear inevitable. President Obama seemed stuck in an early Oval Office rut.

What a long, cold winter it has been. But it’s over now, and with that comes a fresh start. From the initial hints of crisis two years ago, Condé Nast Portfolio has given its readers a glimpse into the future. We were among the earliest to warn of coming problems in subprime lending and derivatives and were prescient in laying out how bad things would get in the banking business. Now we’re determined to provide a road map of what will happen next.

It’s not always going to be pretty. In this issue’s “The $2.5 Trillion Question,” we survey a handful of American leaders—from Cisco CEO John Chambers and restaurateur Danny Meyer to union leader Andy Stern—about when they think the economy will bottom out and how we’ll know when we’re there. The opinions aren’t entirely reassuring, but they at least mark a way for all of us to look forward, not back.

The focus today should be on the new—the search for the people, technologies, and innovations that can help us break out of the bind we’re in. For instance, it’s now conventional wisdom that economists blew it this time around, primarily by underestimating the dangers posed to the financial system. To make sure that doesn’t happen again, physicists and other scientists are developing new ways of studying the economy, as writer Mark Buchanan discovers in “The Crash-Test Solution." Imagine putting the stimulus bill through a massive computerized model of the economy to test out the plan in the virtual world before it hits our pocketbooks. Mathematicians, scientists, and other experts in ecosystems and weather are at work developing such a model.

We also need innovation from those who are developing the policies to fix our economic problems. Contributing editor Matthew Cooper profiles seven business and economic voices in Washington who we think will bring fresh solutions to the table.

Not everyone will be able to make the adjustments necessary to stay relevant. In a way, that’s the point of periods like this: They’re convulsive and confusing, but we almost always learn lessons that bring us long-term benefits. At Portfolio, we’ll be chronicling people and companies in the middle of such moves, starting with this month’s “Exxon vs. Obama,” which looks at whether the world’s largest private oil company can change a business and culture devoted to its entrenched view of energy.

Which brings us to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and whether she too will be able to reinvent herself for a different age. Joe McGinniss, the investigative writer behind Fatal Vision and other books, traveled to Alaska just as Palin was returning from her unsuccessful run for vice president. Months in the making, McGinniss’ piece, “Pipe Dreams," explores the disconnect between Palin’s public comments, in which she favors bringing an oil and gas pipeline to her state, and her actions, which have at times served to block energy development there.

Palin may or may not be able to shift the narrative that McGinnis sketches of her tenure in Alaska. It is not a picture that her supporters will want to see. Her ability to adjust that story line will determine whether spring comes for her in 2012.