In a Special Double Issue Newsweek Picks 21 People Who Will Be Newsmakers in 2007 A Gymnast, Massachusetts and Kansas Pols, and a Rapper on List With French Presidential Front Runner and World‑Renowned DirectorIn the December 25, 2006 – January 1, 2007 issue (on newsstands Monday, December 18), Newsweek takes a look back at 2006 in a special extended “Perspectives” section, complete with cartoons, quips and quotes, and also takes a look ahead to 2007 in its annual franchise, “Who’s Next 2007.”

In this double issue, Newsweek looks at the up-and-comers from the worlds of politics, business, the arts, science and education most likely to make an impact in the next year.
This year’s picks for “Who’s Next 2007” include:

– Gov. of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, a Mormon and an unannounced but eager candidate for the Republican nomination for presidential candidacy in 2008, is working tirelessly for the support of Christian conservatives. Romney’s aides are hoping Republican primary voters will see a pattern: here’s a turnaround specialist ready to fix the party, the country and the world.

“The idea is to be the fresh perspective,” says one adviser, who asked to remain anonymous describing strategy for a still-unannounced campaign. “McCain is yesterday, Giuliani is today, Romney is tomorrow.”

– Deval Patrick, the next governor of Massachusetts and only the second African-American since Reconstruction to lead any state.

– Jerry Seinfeld, quietly busy for the last three years writing, producing and starring in a movie for DreamWorks, a film that’s sure to produce enormous buzz, not least because it’s called “Bee Movie.” The movie is animated and stars Seinfeld’s distinctly New York voice as Barry B. Benson, a bee who leaves the hive and discovers, to his horror, that humans have been stealing their honey.

“I think I’m bringing a different humorous sensibility to an animated movie,” he says. “There’s a lot of attitude in the jokes, the same way it was on the show,” Seinfeld says.

– The Rev. John Foley, as head of the Cristo Rey Network, he helps lowincome kids get to college.

– Nastia Liukin, who at 17, commands the attention of the entire gymnastics world.

– Anand Jon, the South Indian-born, Parsons-trained designer has dressed the likes of Paris Hilton, Janet Jackson and Bruce Springsteen, and this year is launching a line of sexy jeans and starring in a reality TV show.

– Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a pro-business, pro-military, prochoice, fiscal conservative, who easily won re-election this fall, and has emerged as the dean of a new breed of Democrats taking over what was once reliably red terrain.

– Silvestre Reyes, who is the new Democratic intelligence-committee chief, served in Vietnam and knows a bit about combat.

– Conrad Crane, who heads the military-history department at the Army War College, helped draft a new counterinsurgency manual for the military that rethinks the way we fight the enemy.

– Kim Ng, in line to become baseball’s first female general manager, and the first in any major U.S. sport — as well as an Asian-American pioneer.

– Segolene Royal, front runner in the French presidential elections.

– Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the newly elected presiding bishop for the Episcopal Church and former oceanographer.

– Ingrid Mattson, raised Catholic, this Muslim professor and recently elected president of the Islamic Society of North America, is bringing the moderate viewpoint to the world.

– Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA, part of the National Institutes of Health) and one of the country’s leading addiction researchers, says brain science is proving that we all have the potential to become addicted to something: drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex, gambling, even food — and she’s determined to find a cure.

– Majora Carter, an artist and urban planner, she created Sustainable South Bronx (SSBX), an organization dedicated to the idea, says Carter, that “poor communities of color are just as deserving of clean air, clean water and open space as wealthier ones.”

– Daisuke Matsuzaka, a hard-throwing Japanese right-hander joins the Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox as a $100 million man.

– Lara Logan, CBS’s chief foreign correspondent, has spent the last five years reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan. Before that, she was in Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Kosovo, the West Bank and Gaza, and Burundi during the coup.

– Sarah Silverman, a hot comic and star of Comedy Central’s rudely funny “Sarah Silverman Program.” Her show is an unholy union of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” absurdism and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” ‘s acidity. But Silverman’s spin is the way she spews bile with a smile. “A happy-golucky douche bag,” she says.

– Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett, join forces to conceive the mostanticipated new reality show of next year — “On the Lot,” a Fox series that pits 16 young film directors against each other for a shot at a $1 million development deal with Spielberg’s studio, DreamWorks.

– Professionally known as “Common,” Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr. is a softspoken man who prays before each meal — a mix of Christian, Buddhist and Muslim rituals — and speaks lovingly of writing children’s books. This may come as a surprise to people who know him as the Isaac Hayescool rapper who brought groove, soul and stealth sexuality back to hip-hop.