But Obama's newly aggressive use of executive authority and efforts to persuade were not merely tactical measures of last resort. As the president repeatedly deployed his power over the last two years, he simultaneously developed a growing comfort with the fact that progressive policy turned out to be good politics. And as the president evolved, the White House evolved with him. The more centrist of his top advisers -- such as Rahm Emanuel -- became external allies, while Valerie Jarrett and first lady Michelle Obama grew in influence on the inside.

Today, there's a strong case to be made that Obama's second term will feature a chief executive who uses both an inside and an outside game to advance progressive ideals.

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One of the tenets of outsider politics is that public opinion matters and therefore transparency matters. In outsider politics, the power of the people plays a fundamental role in a bringing about a desired outcome.

Obama discussed his need to adopt more of an outsider strategy just before the 2010 midterms while discussing his shortcomings in this area. "I think anybody who's occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics, and that you can't be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion," he told Peter Baker of The New York Times.

But President Obama didn't seem to fully absorb that lesson until nine months later. When his debt-ceiling negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner fell apart in July of 2011, Obama discovered the merciless limitations of closed-door dealings. Boehner walked away from talks with no accountability, leaving the president with no recourse. He couldn't enlist the public as an ally because the American people weren't fully briefed on the nature of those talks. And he couldn't leverage support from members of his own party, many of whom had also been kept in the dark so he could place issues like Medicare and Social Security on the bargaining table.

President Obama's transition from a practitioner of insider politics to an employer of outsider politics was best demonstrated to me by something he said about the successful repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy shortly before his evolution began.

"Things don't always go according to your plans," he told me, "and so when they do -- especially in this town -- it's pleasantly surprising."

The statement put Washington at the center of the policy change process, but insiders alone weren't responsible for pushing the effort over the finish line before the close of the 111th Congress. A big part of what made DADT repeal successful was an outsider push. Activists protested vigorously, blogged, wrote op-eds, withheld donations and generally fomented discontent and a sense of urgency that lawmakers had to listen to.