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How politics is played by one who recognizes the strategy... Chris Matthews has spent a quarter century on the playing field of American politics -- from righthand man of Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill to host of NBC's highest rated cable speak show Hardball. In this revised and updated edition of his political classic, he proposes fascinating new stories of raw ambition, brutal rivalry, and exquisite seduction and reveals the inside rules this govern the strategy of power. |
| Hardball, first published in 1988, is like a modern version of Machiavelli's The Prince, only much extra richly illustrated, together with anecdotes drawn from speak-show host Chris Matthews's stint as a congressional staffer (where he worked for, among others, renowned Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill). Discussing such basic principles as "It's not who you recognize; it's who you get to recognize" and "Don't get mad, don't get even--get ahead," Matthews not only dishes out choice Washington insider info, he has over the years inspired many readers to apply his principles for political success to their own professional lives. |
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Customer Reviews |
 Washington politics - we taxpayers are screwed over daily 2010-08-25 |
| By Steven Oswald (Vero Beach) |
Chris Matthews titled his book "Hardball - How Politics Is Played Told by One Who Knows the Game". A more fitting title would have been, "Hard On - A Political Sycophant reveals His Biggest Turn Ons".
Whoa, is it really that bad? Yes, Chris must have been waxing his noodle every night after sitting across the desk worshipping the Big Blow Hards he worked for like Tip O'Neill and Ted Kennedy. As he says himself "for years I had stood in awed attention at the grand debate, the daunting personalities, the big-picture spectacle". Seems he has forgotten that the big spectacle is being paid for by the common man going about his daily business making money to support and feed his family. For Chris the grand spectacle is the reality of life, the new Romans wading among the commoners. I think Chris would love seeing any liberty loving Americans thrown to the lions for the amusement of their masters.
It's Not Who You Know; It's Who You Get to Know, that's a frightening title, but not to Chris, he has to recount how a master politician like "the young man from Texas had a mission", which was to fake that he was interested in the other congressional secretaries living in the building by going to the shower four times a morning to get to slap towels and be a man. Yes, Lyndon Johnson "could rise to such heights", and be the man that got the country into a miserable war in Vietnam. Oops, Chris doesn't see any of the faults; no he sees the great man pushing his welfare, statist rules down the throat of the country for its own good, all with the nice name of the Great Society. LBJ got his way all right, the rest of us got higher taxes and a country that has continued to sink into a welfare bog. Chris also makes a great point how that everyone in Washington "owed his job to a particular senator". He recounts with glee that "sons and daughters of friends back home operated elevators that had been automated for years". Now if that is not a perfect picture of government in action, waste with no care, just raise taxes or increase the deficit and push the debt onto those children yet to be born. Like a good little Fascist he loves to tell us of one of his heroes and how "a call from Rayburn (Speaker of the House) might get the IRS auditors working" on an examination of a person that crossed him. I think Chris would have just loved to be sitting across from Hitler as he called for the extermination of people, what power Chris would think, oh, yeah. Yet Chris is not without compassion, when speaking of Ted Kennedy he just mentions "Chappaquiddick, the incident two years earlier in which a woman had died in a car driven by Kennedy". Notice how Chris makes it a simple accidental death, no mention of Kennedy leaving her to drown in his overturned car, his going back to the party and not mentioning anything about the accident when something could have been done to save her. He even leaves out sober Ted swimming back to his condo for a good night's sleep. No, Chris is a forgiving when the murderer is a man of political power. For Chris yearns to be a member of influence.
It's Better to Receive than to Give, or how to use a person's need for meaning in their life to advance a politician's goals. Chris is so turned on to the need of people and how they can be used that he just grins when he recounts the California assemblyman Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh who said: "If you can't drink their booze, take their money, screw their women and vote against them in the morning, you don't belong in this place". How refreshing to hear a politican say it like it is, they are indifferent as to our concerns or the real issues in the country. If they help anyone it is only to raise money and get re-elected. As FDR's campaign manager said, we give the handouts and collect the votes.
Dance with the One That Brung Ya, and you didn't think chapter headings could get any cornier? Chris gives us the unvarnished story of pork spending, as he recounts, "Deals are what people make in Washington, deals pure and simple. A senator tells his colleague that he can count on him for support in getting funding for some crucial public-works project in the other senator's state. He is expected to deliver". What taxpayer doesn't cringe to think of a bridge being built to nowhere, or a re-surfacing of a road that was just paved a year ago? Simply valuable resources wasted. What Chris and his heroes have never understood is that the world revolves around scarcity. Resources that are wasted on pork are not being used to build up the tools and machines needed to increase production and raise the standard of living for the masses. Savings and capital are the key components of creating wealth and all waste is a horrible theft from hard working taxpayers, like spending the seed corn, foolish in the long run. Chris loves all statist Democrats and statist Republicans, believers in more central power and control, he laughs at a fellow Democrat, Jimmy Carter, for not playing up to the established political machine in Washington, and talks about only one Republican with anything close to praise, Ronald Reagan, strictly because Reagan abandoned his small government principles and expanded government and was slick in getting his way.
Keep Your Enemies in Front of You, another chapter of pain for the reader, with some of the same old cast of heroes for Chris to kiss all over, like LBJ and his crude wit of "better to have `em inside the tent pissin' out than outside pissin' in". Does that sound like a real leader along the lines of Thomas Jefferson? I think NOT! That old, ignorant, jackass caused 100,000 deaths (in action and later suicide) of U.S. military men, killed for nothing but a lie. That's not even counting the millions of Vietnamese maimed, and murdered. Chris can look past all this and just get stiff all over by thinking of that power being abused. As he recounts a story of Jim Baker trying to scuttle a man's campaign by inviting obscure state senators to the White House where "dams, bridges, hospitals fell manna-like upon their communities". Does Chris wince at this obvious waste? Maybe those dams, bridges and hospitals should be built where communities really needed those resources, NO! He thinks it only right for politicians to waste all they want for their own egos and advancement, forget about the country, the taxpayers are just the little people.
Don't Get Mad; Don't Get Even; Get Ahead, I have to admit that this is one chapter that contains some good advice about not trying to get even with people that have damaged your career or upset you professionally or personally. Chris sees it more in Machiavellian terms, but turning the other check is sometimes simply healthy behavior. Of course Chris still sees it in getting even, and he recounts a story of his favorite pork providing, gas-bag politician boss, Tip O'Neill. Seems somebody said Tip was a "fat, bloated and out of control -just like the federal budget", which is a very true statement. Unfortunately the person made it in front of the camera, which is really mean, and good old Tip made him pay for it by making sure that person's opponent received the contributions he needed to beat him. Chris just loves to see his favorite old gasbag tip the scales of justice. (Let's face it, you would need an elephant on the other side of the scales to balance out Tip O'Neill).
Leave No Shot Unanswered, another chapter with Chris explaining the ugly fact of politics, simply that politicians are liars and will constantly tell lies about opponents. Chris has different strategies: (i) Catch `Em in a lie (ii) Ridicule and (iii) Jujitsu. He gives examples and the one about FDR, our great dictator, stands out as something only a Democrat, statist, welfare worshipper would love. When Republicans were upset with FDR going for a 4th term and started pointing out some of his dictator type behavior, such as getting a Navy ship to pick up his dog (which is typical for Presidents). FDR ridiculed them in a speech at a dinner for Democrats (probably all boozed up) and spoke from the dog's point of view, rather cute, but obviously only a smoke screen to hide the truth. Of course Chris loves that story and simply glows with excitement.
Only Talk When It Improves the Silence, when will this book end? Pretty good concept, sometimes it's better to say nothing, especially something harmful to another person. In Chris' strange world of the giants of politics, he has seen silence force other people to fill the space. Sure that happens all the time, nothing new there, but of course a politician always uses it to force his agenda, his will, and his wants. Servant of the people, what a joke if you still believe that after reading about these career politicians, they only want and desire more power and influence.
Always Concede on Principle, another chapter on how politicians twist their own words to mean something else and get everyone else twisted up to the point they don't even understand what the politician is pushing. To Chris, this is a masterful skill, to me it is simply lying, but then I'm not surprised since politicians are the biggest liars in the world. Master criminals could take lessons from the crooks in Washington.
Hang a Lantern on Your Problem, actually this chapter was good, it discusses admitting mistakes first and owning up to any problems you have created. All in all good advice for anyone in the real world and even a politician.
Spin, this is truly a politician's middle name. Taking a bad fact and spinning it to tell a good story. His first example is the classic stockbroker trick (another person to watch carefully). "When the stock moves up, it's good news; when it drops, it's "profit-taking" - good news again". He tells a long story of how Mondale's handler figured he could win Georgia, but probably lose in all the other primaries being held in the South. So he made the rounds of reporters and kept repeating the story that if Mondale doesn't win Georgia, he's finished. Of course when Mondale won Georgia he made it seem like he had made a comeback, the opposite of the facts that Mondale was losing everywhere else. Here's a classic too, Chris in reverent tones mentions how handlers for politicians with a small audience will take partitions to cut down the size of a ballroom, so to the people watching on TV it looks like the room is packed, even though it was only one-third of capacity. Yup, lie, cheat, just win baby.
The Press is the Enemy, this chapter raises some good points, what any public figure needs to be aware of when talking to the press. Simply put never tell the press anything you don't want blasted on the front page. Chris gives some examples of people talking off the record, or saying things in a private group that included a member of the press and later seeing what they said reported on the nightly news. At times it can be embarrassing and can even destroy careers. Boy I don't feel sorry for those politicians one bit.
The Reputation of Power, Chris loves giving examples of how slick politicians can turn someone's words against them and do meaningless things that provide the illusion of something actually being done of meaning. His speaks to how Reagan called for a "budget summit" and the MSM latched onto the concept of a "budget" and started talking about budgets and getting things budgeted (the press can be pretty stupid is the real lesson here). So much talking about budgeting led the normal U.S. taxpayer to think that Washington really cared about the budget deficit and was going to do something about it. That's what families do when they exceed their budget, they back off spending in other areas. As Chris makes clear, the foolish U.S. taxpayer misunderstood the spin; Washington politicians had no desire to fix the budget and were only making everyone think that something meaningful was happening, all smoke and mirrors. Chris loves it when the politicians burn the taxpayer, it really gives gets him jacked up.
Positioning, the final chapter, sorry, but I did not finish the book, I'm just sick of Chris.
My final thought is - TERM LIMITS - no career politicians.
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| pissed off 2010-08-16 |
| By gbarchus |
I ordered two books from amaz*n and they charged me two separate shipping fees. I e-mailed the company and they did not respond.
I'm pissed off! |
 Kindle Pricing? 2010-06-25 |
| By milmascaras (Orange, CA United States) |
| This is more of a criticism of Amazon than the book. $13.00 for Kindle pricing but less than $6 for paperback?! With pricing like this, Amazon should make a new category of the additional money it costs instead of how much you could save. |
 Hardball: How Politics Is Played Told By One Whoe Knows The Game 2010-06-25 |
| By Betty L. Schlagle (LOGAN, OHIO, US) |
| The book purchased was listed as in like new condition. The only mark on the book was black marker on the outside edge which did not effect the book. The book arrived at my home a lot quicker than I thought it would and wouldn't hesitate to purchase another book for the seller. |
| Wish I'd read this 20 years ago 2009-11-03 |
| By Business Reader (TX USA) |
| Great read with pages of wisdom on political survival. Hard to put down this book. These pearls of wisdom apply just as much to the business world. I wish I had read and learned from this book 20 years ago when I was first starting my career. |
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