Frank: The Crucial Role Of Luck
(One in a series of posts on Barney Frank’s 2015 memoir, Frank: A Life In Politics From The Great Society To Same-Sex Marriage.)
“I did not owe my career in Congress solely to my talent or driving ambition. I owed it first and foremost to a man over whom I had no influence: Pope John Paul II.” (p. 82)
By the spring of 1980, Barney Frank had serially antagonized many of the most powerful people in Massachusetts politics, and was on the verge of leaving his safe state legislative seat for a new career as an attorney in private practice. Then Pope John Paul II, who combined a dislike of liberalism with a healthy skepticism (earned from decades living under Communist rule in Poland) of clerics tied too tightly to the state, ordered Jesuit priest and Massachusetts Congressman Robert Drinannot to run for re-election.
“Throughout this book, I have attempted to rebut a popular misconception about politics: that public offices are filled with ambitious, driven men—women are rarely included in this stereotype—whose electoral success is the result of a carefully plotted pursuit of political victory. What this omits is the crucial role that luck plays in this process. In America, you get to run for office only when the right vacancy arises. That means that even the most determined would-be state senator or mayor or congressman is not the master of his fate….” (p. 82)
Massachusetts, despite a longstanding propensity to elect centrist Republican governors, is effectively a one-party state. And in a one-party state, vacancies are often the only way for ambitious politicians to advance. In two (or more) party states, there’s another, riskier option: run against a vulnerable incumbent of the opposing party.
But Frank’s larger point stands—luck plays a disconcertingly, and humblingly, large role in electoral politics. He cites approvingly the wisdom of Tip O’Neill, one of his political mentors: “(W)e are in a business where you only get ahead because of the death, defeat, or disgrace of one of your friends.” (p. 82)
Or, as the 19th century Tammany Hall leader George W. Plunkitt famously said, “I seen my opportunities, and I took ’em.”
Other posts in this series:
Frank: A Life In Politics From The Great Society To Same-Sex Marriage
Frank: The 3 Aspects Of Legislative Work
Frank: The Essentials Of Legislative Influence
Frank: Negative Campaigning 1 & 2
Frank: On Coming Out, Being Nicer, & Going On The Offensive
Frank: The Principle Of Compensation
Frank: Incrementalism Is Not The Enemy Of Militancy
Frank: Show Me Where It Says I Can’t
Frank: Breaking The Negative Feedback Loop Of Antigovernment Attitudes
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