it's the professionals...

Theodore H. White's The Making of the President, 1960 described the major political advisers of the day as a few dozen Washington lawyers, "who in their dark-paneled chambers nurse an amateur's love for politics and dabble in it whenever their practice permits."  By 1991, that description had the dated feel of a sepia-toned photograph, harking back to an era when political consultants, like tennis players in long pants, were not paid for their work. 

There were still amateurs who loved the game in 1991, but campaigns were now run by professionals.
--------{excerpt, All Too Human, by George Stephanopoulos}

Reading that paragraph in Mr. S.'s book -- realized my tiny, insignificant "sideswipe" experience in state politics in the 90s -- even though it was the 90s, approximated the 1960 style Theodore White described, more closely than national-campaign-style of the then-current 90s. 

State-level is different from national;

and a citizen legislature that meets for two months in the winter is different from full-time congress.

Most lobbyists I knew were lawyers or non-lawyers who loved the political process ("the Process").  Loved the knowledge, loved seeing what would happen, loved predicting and being right, even loved predicting and being wrong, (a few) loved having the Latin phrase for something, loved the understated, bare-bones "pageantry" if you could call it that -- in short, I guess, people who loved.  

---------------------- [excerpt All Too / George S.]:  The professionals with the hot hands that fall were Carville and Begala.  Earlier that month they had guided former JFK aide Harris Wofford to an upset landslide victory in his Pennsylvania Senate race against Bush attorney general Richard Thornburgh.  Every Democrat in the country hoped the race was a harbinger for 1992, and most of the candidates wanted to hire the men who had helped make it happen.  

Paul Begala and I were friends from our days together on Gephardt's staff.  I spent most of my day on the House floor, but whenever I got back to the office, there he was, at the desk across from me, having more fun in front of a word processor than I thought was humanly possible.  Watching him write a speech was like watching Ray Charles play the piano.  He would rock back and forth and talk to the screen, groaning one minute, laughing the next.  The speeches he produced had perfect populist pitch....  

With his lizardlike looks and colorful patois, Carville was the better-known partner, but James wouldn't have been James without Paul.  

...The heart of the narrative -- part buddy movie, part perverse morality play:  the story of Dick [Morris] and Bill [Clinton]. It was the tale of two political prodigies -- one from the North, one from the South; one short, one tall; one a consultant, the other the candidate of his dreams.  Idealistic, fast-talking baby boomers, they ...believed in the power of politics to help people but loved the sport of it even more. 

When they met in 1978, Dick was a fledgling consultant scouring the country for candidates and Bill was an ambitious attorney general of Arkansas looking to make a move.  They bonded by poring over polls and bantering about campaign strategy the way baseball fans study box scores and relive their favorite plays.  And together, they won.  

But it wasn't an easy or equal relationship.   

When Dick looked up at Bill, he saw a future president; when Bill looked down at Dick, he saw the devil he knew -- the part of himself that confused power and popularity with public service and principle.  Dick knew how to win, but by the time he met Bill, he wasn't scrupulous about how he did it or whom he did it for.  His other clients were Republicans, and his attack ads were the roughest in the business.  Word was that he would work for both sides of the same race if he could get away with it.  

So after Bill became America's youngest governor, he fired Dick for being, as Morris put it, an "assault on his vanity."  Two years later, Bill had become America's youngest ex-governor.  Tried to do too much too fast, let his ideals get the better of him.  Chastened, he summoned Dick to plot the comeback.  

...He was the dark buddha whose belly Clinton rubbed in desperate times.

--------------------
{All Too Human, by George Stephanopoulos. Copyright, 1999.  Little, Brown.  Boston, New York, London.}  

I guess I like the amateurs better than the professionals.  

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