Business Photo Slideshows

Left Brains, Right Brains

Gas is hovering at $3 a gallon, mortgage defaults are on the rise, and consumer spending is slowing. Who you gonna call? The contenders' top economic advisers.

Hillary Clinton's Economist

Policy wonk Gene Sperling, 48, honed his economic views working alongside Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in the Clinton administration. (He says his opinions fall between those of the two men.) Academic cred: J.D., Yale. Résumé builder: co-wrote episodes of The West Wing.

Barack Obama's Economist

University of Chicago professor Austan Goolsbee, 38, a centrist who voted for his first presidential candidate in 1988 (Michael Dukakis), started advising Obama in 2004. He's best known for pop-culture economics columns and quirky academic papers. Résumé builder: performed improv as an undergrad at Yale.

John Edwards' Economist

The lone economic adviser with an M.B.A., Leo Hinderey, 59, made his name in telecom?serving as C.E.O. of AT&T Broadband and, briefly, of the troubled Global Crossing (he left before the firm declared bankruptcy). A major Democratic party donor, he now runs a private equity firm. Résumé builder: has raced in Nascar.

Fred Thompson's Economist

An economist and expert on tax policy who worked for Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, Harvard Ph.D. Lawrence Lindsey, 53, entered politics as a George McGovern voter in 1972. Lindsey got to know Thompson when both served on the board of Guggenheim Advisors. Résumé builder: ran a hot dog stand in Bath, Maine, with hedge fund billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller.

Rudy Giuliani's Economist

In 1995, Michael Boskin, 61, a Berkeley Ph.D., led a commission that convinced the federal government that it was overstating inflation, making him a hero in conservative circles. These days, Boskin teaches at Stanford and advises the U.S. Treasury on tax reform.

Mitt Romney's Economist

A supply-sider, Glen Hubbard, 48, was once considered a potential successor to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. Hubbard is most famously the architect of George W. Bush's tax cuts. He's lampooned in a YouTube video, "Every Breath Bernanke Takes."