A Man in Full

by Tom Wolfe

Wes said, “Do you know what politicians really love about politics—what makes politics so hard to give up once you’ve had a taste of it?” “Oh, I don’t know … Power? Fame? Money?” Wes laughed. “It’s certainly not money. Anybody who goes into politics to make money has to be an idiot. I know some idiots have done precisely that, but it’s a stupid thing to try. Me, I actually lose money every year, because on my salary I can’t do all the things I’m expected to do. And it’s not power, if by power you mean the power to get things done, change the life of the city, reduce crime, rehabilitate the South side, all those things. And it’s not fame. You quickly get used to publicity. You get used to seeing yourself on television, seeing your picture in the newspaper, even to having a special ‘In Depth’ segment done about you on the NBC nightly news or articles written about you in national magazines or The New York Times. You start to take all that as nothing more than a natural part of your life, your role. You start looking at it as something that’s just … there … like the sky, the sun, the clouds, the night, the moon, the stars, the traffic on Georgia 400. No, what really gets you, what really grabs you, what really turns you into a political junkie is … seein’em jump.”