Book Report on the Best Job in Politics

Book Report on the Best Job in Politics

Alan Rosenthal, who has a profound experience of modern American politics in both political theory and field work, is currently a professor of public policy and political science at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. The Best Job In Politics: Exploring How Governors Succeed as Policy Leaders actually contains most of the rules to gubernatorial success, it is a must-read for any freshman in college or office and also newly governor-elect.

Chapter 1 mainly analyzes why governor is the best job in politics. It is concluded that in almost every other office, from mayor to president, there are more limitations and thus harder to achieve political accomplishments than governors. Lawmakers in legislatures and congress do the jobs of representing their constituency rather than solving problems, and they have to strive for several years just to win support for an amendment to a single piece of legislation. Though senators are more prestigious jobs of the U.S., however, former governors who turn in to senators are not the happiest of senators. According to examples Rosenthal cited, most of former governors who turn into senators are disappointed by the limited power and by the slow pace.

Even former governors who become presidents appear to miss effectiveness of being governor, since presidents have far more responsibilities and considerably less capacity for meeting them. According to Boyer (2011), eighteen months later after Bush sworn into the white house, he called Perry, who was the lieutenant governor during Bush’s tenure as Texan governor, from the White House and at the end of the conversation said,“Hey, Perry, you remember that conversation we had…I told you that being the governor of Texas was the greatest job in the world?” Perry said he remembered and Bush said, “Well, it is.”
   Besides having more control, though both governors and senators have to face limits on privacy and strains on family life, governor are able to set up their own schedule and thus more at ease in terms of the latter pressure. Moreover, governors are economically better off than senators due to better perquisite.

Chapter 2 defined the operating setting or say operating environment of governors as one factor that influences governors’ success, which includes the gubernatorial power, the legislative power, party control and partisan division, economic and fiscal conditions, and other less predictable conditions.

Though formal powers and informal powers varies from governor to governor, but the governors have the upper hand against legislatures due to constitutions and statues: governors can call the legislature in to special session to focus the public and the legislatures on her/his chosen issue; governors undertake the responsibility of formulating the budget; governors have the options of line veto, conditional veto and amendatory veto as their defensive instruments.