The United States of Ambition: Politicians, Power, and the Pursuit of Office.

• Author: Noah, Timothy

The United States of Ambition: Politicians, Power, and the Pursuit of Office.

Now that the ideological fervor of the Reagan years has given way to the gentlemanly pragmatism of the Bush era, political analysts are turning their attention from large questions about the purpose of government to smaller ones about its mechanics. Ten years ago, the two seemed one and the same. Hadn't voters chosen the unmistakably conservative Ronald Reagan because they though the federal government was too liberal? To serve the apparent will of the people, the federal government slashed taxes, boosted defense spending, and funnelled cash (legally and otherwise) to the Nicaraguan contras. But even before the presidency passed from Ronald Reagan to George Bush, these causes lost their momentum, and the notion of a popular mandate to do any of those things became less compelling. If voters were not determining the course of our democracy, what was?

Ambition was, according to Alan Ehrenhalt, a respected former political reporter for Congressional Quarterly who is now executive editor of Governing magazine. Ehrenhalt's thesis is that the quirky path of recent political history, from Vietnam to Watergate to Operation Desert Storm, is best understood not by trying to figure out elusive electoral mood swings but by scrutinizing the unsubtle egos of American politicians. The country lacks political direction, he argues, not because voters are ambivalent but because politicians with various political beliefs are tugging it in a hundred different directions at once.

Ehrenhalt lays out his argument through a series of tightly written, chapter-length case studies, beginning at the small-town level and working his way up to Congress and the White House. In each instance, Ehrenhalt shows how a powerful (usually business-dominated) elite that once called the political shots lost its influence as politicians became more independent and assertive.

In Concord, California, a sleepy city govenment that previously rubber-stamped decisions made by an unelected city manager suddenly turned activist in the eighties with the election of a city council dedicated to instituting "comparable worth" pay. In Greenville, South Carolina, a county government that was formerly the rural fiefdom of a state senator was taken over by fundamentalist Christians bent on restricting sinful development. In Connecticut, the power of state party bosses like Republican J. Henry Roraback and Democrat John...