Christie Hefner Blogs: Obama's Anything but Orthodox

Christie Hefner is the chairman and C.E.O. of Playboy Enterprises. Today, Hefner-the daughter of the original playa-will bring to Portfolio.com readers her distinct point of view on the Playboy brand and the media business. One day. One place: Portfolio.com.

I am an admitted Barack Obama supporter, having begun to work for him when he first announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in a seven-person race few thought he could win.

But, with that full disclosure, I am truly fascinated by the possibility that he can alter how both citizens and elected officials think about tackling big problems.

Critics have mocked his language of change as being nothing more than soaring rhetoric and calls for singing "Kumbaya."

But if you look at his advisers and his approaches to problems, he regularly charts a course that eschews the orthodoxy of either party.

Take economic policy, for example. One of his top advisers, Austan Goolsbee, is a well-regarded University of Chicago economist. Hardly a lefty.

I recently finished and really enjoyed a book called Nudge, written by other University of Chicago guys, which presents a fascinating way that any organization, from government to corporations, can influence people's behavior without mandating what they should do. That strikes me as very much a part of how Obama thinks: targeted incentives, whether to automakers to increase fuel efficiency or individuals to make the right health-care-plan choices.

As the C.E.O. of Playboy Enterprises--a company that began as a magazine that celebrates capitalism and social justice, based on a philosophy dedicated to personal freedom and social responsibility--I have to like that. A lot!