Mark Halperin, writing in Time magazine, believes President Barack Obama will need some luck to win back the core groups that helped elect him in 2008. That usually translates into an “event.” For Bill Clinton, it was the Oklahoma City bombing. For Geroge W. Bush, it was 9/11.

The coalition that got Barack Obama elected President just two years ago has been shattered. Gaming out the trajectory of the next two years can be done any number of ways, but Obama’s efforts to rebuild a politically robust alliance will be the most telling. It may be the biggest challenge of his career — and he will need happenstance along with skill if he is going to get it done.

The New York Times reports that the mounting debt facing states like Illinois, which is still paying off billions in bills that it got from schools and social service providers last year, is stoking fears of a future financial crisis.

While next year could be even worse, there are bigger, longer-term risks, financial analysts say. Their fear is that even when the economy recovers, the shortfalls will not disappear, because many state and local governments have so much debt — several trillion dollars’ worth, with much of it off the books and largely hidden from view — that it could overwhelm them in the next few years.

With WikiLeakls next release apparently targeting Bank of America, traders fear a subprime lending scandal will be exposed. Charlie Gasparino talks with someone who has read the leaked files and offers his assessment for The Daily Beast.