In the early hours of February 26, 1990, Daniel Ortega walked into a Managua auditorium to concede an election he had been widely favored to win. After the 1990 defeat, Ortega spent 16 years clawing his way back into power. The second is that Moscow is building out machinery that will help keep Ortega in power. Given how fickle and punitive the Ortega regime has been toward its supporters, there is a realistic path for laying the groundwork for defections at the elite level. If the Nicaraguan assembly approves the electoral reform in the first legislature, the U.S. should target Nicaragua’s gold next.