My First Meeting with a Politician

I remember the first time I met an actual politician.

I was working in a law office in a small town in rural St. Mary’s County, Maryland, and I was youngish twentysomething. My boss was a member of one of the well-connected older families that ran the country (read: Good Ol' Boy) and so he had to go to a political fundraiser for Steny Hoyer.

Well, I had never given politics a thought in my life before then. I had read Thucydides, and so, politically, I favored Athenian democracy over Spartan com