Hardball Essay

The political game is a dog eat dog world, there are several factors that determined weather a politician will be successful or not. Having alliances, enemies, and deals is all part of it. In the book “Hardball: How Politics is Played” written by Chris Mathews explains what it takes to get ahead in politics and how to avoid disasters techniques previously used by others. “It’s not who you know; it’s who you get to know.” Forming alliances is very important when trying to climb the ladder higher in politics. In 1949 LBJ joined the senate and by the end of 1952 he had won the job of top Democratic leader. Before anything of this happened LBJ had a plan to achieve this, and it is called the “Johnson treatment”. It is …show more content…

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in jail and later became president of South Africa. . When Nelson Mandela was made prime minister of South America, he didn’t hold a grudge that he had been imprisoned but rather worked past it. Francis Patrick Sullivan was a whole different story. He had the goal to one day land a job on Capitol Hill, his problem was that he thought that be meeting with congressmen at nightspot would charm them. Professionals like to keep their private and office life separated. He was managing a House campaign, make Herbie a winner. A day later Herbie told Sullivan that he wasn’t cut out for politic. This ruined Sullivan; he spent years drinking and even changed political parties in order to go against Herbie. A lot of politician their lives have been obsessively focused on a single bad break, in order to survive and grown as a professional one should use those bad experience and use them to avoid a future mishap. Revenge never leads to anything good. Once again never ignore an insult, to the public that can be seen as an admission of guilt. Respond to attacks immediately and don’t let them get away with anything. Dukakis was accused of being a bleeding heart liberal and then went to an interview and said he wouldn’t push the death penalty on someone who raped and killed a girl. Since he didn’t respond to the attack, it made if worse he had to pay the price. There are three tactics to ruin someone.