Hardball How Politics Is Played Told By One Who Knows The Game [Paperback]

How politics is played by one who knows the game...host of MSNBC'sHardball, Chris Matthews.

Chris Matthews has spent a quarter century on the playing field of American politics—from right-hand man of Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill to host of NBC's highest rated cable talk showHardball.In this revised and updated edition of his political classic, he offers fascinating new stories of raw ambition, brutal rivalry, and exquisite seduction and reveals the inside rules that govern the game of power.Contents

Introduction

Part I Alliances

1 It's Not Who You Know; It's Who You Get to Know

2 All Politics Is Local

3 It's Better to Receive Than to Give

4 Dance with the One That Brung Ya

Part II Enemies

5 Keep Your Enemies in Front of You

6 Don't Get Mad; Don't Get Even; Get Ahead

7 Leave No Shot Unanswered

Part III Deals

8 Only Talk When It Improves the Silence

9 Always Concede on Principle

Part IV Reputations

10 Hang a Lantern on Your Problem

11 Spin!

12 The Press Is the Enemy

13 The Reputation of Power

14 Positioning

Perspective

IndexIntroduction

Be warned. This is not a civics book. It is not about pristine procedures, but about imperfect people. It is not an aerial judgment of how leaders of this or any country ought rightly to behave, but an insider's view of the sometimes outrageous way they actually do. Its subject is not the grand sweep of history, but the round-the-clock scramble for position, power and survival in the city of Washington.

Let me define terms:hardballis clean, aggressive Machiavellian politics. It is the discipline of gaining and holding power, useful to any profession or undertaking, but practiced most openly and unashamedly in the world of public affairs.

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