thats all
cheers

So I don’t know nearly as much about politics at the retail level as Mr. Modesitt, but I do think that there are books/other media out there that give a flavor of the national level, as I have seen/investigated it.

For the executive branch, I would recommend Bruce Catton’s 3-volume opus about the Civil War. That sounds strange, but it makes clear how US politics operates in an extreme situation, and what makes a good politician (and Lincoln grew to be very, very good) as opposed to a less good one (like Chase or Davis). Plus, it’s superbly written.

But, personally, I would round that out with Vidal’s Lincoln. Vidal had been there (father a Senator), and he has a quirky view of the US as an empire, but he has a superb eye for the sleazy sides of the whole affair which somehow makes you appreciate some politicians more. Plus, he takes much more the point of view of the failures, like Chase.

Unfortunately, Vidal doesn’t do modern (although I never read his Gilded Age, his mature work about FDR). For that I would recommend the delightful British Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, first in video, and then in book form. The book is useful because it makes clear some important things sloughed over in the TV series, such as the fact that the Foreign Office is really there to prevent short-term politicians from doing irreparable harm to the long-term security of Britain — and so they do it by obtuse bureaucracy and passive resistance. And, of course, every episode is applicable to the US, and very funny.

I have never found much material about the legislative side very useful, because all fail to capture a fundamental fact: each senator and representative is like a stuffed dummy, utterly dependent on his or her staff, because there is far too much for them to learn, know, and do in order to keep the wheels of government moving, much less improve them, and so they depend on the staff to fill the gaps. When you see them voting, they have just been summoned from their offices on a little tram car five minutes ago, having been given a rough idea in their caucuses a few days ago and with the aide filling them in as they travel on what’s happened between then and now — often, that plus whatever else the staff tells them is the only information they have on a bill. In committee meetings, a staff member is hovering with a printout of questions to ask and speeches to make, and is conferring when the meeting takes an unexpected turn. The staff defines the useful news of the day, and filters the pantload of telegrams, letters, and emails. The staff is there to prevent the representative from choking on his or her own inevitable ignorance.

The closest thing I’ve seen to this — and it’s not directly on point — is Robert Redford’s The Candidate. It may seem as if the point of the movie is how political expediency inevitably trumps principles. Not at all. The point is how a first-time candidate comes to realize that he must be dependent on his staff from now on. Hence the final question in the movie (sorry, no spoilers).

That leaves voting behavior. Actually, there has been a fair bit discovered about how people really decide between candidates and vote. I can think of no finer place to discover it than Nate Silver’s http://www.fivethirtyeight.com. He may seem politically biased, but, in my experience, when it comes to predictions and analysis of voting behavior, he’s not. Just reading his asides as he handicaps various races will, over time, give you a pretty good picture of what’s going on.

That’s my background, that’s my list. Just sayin’.