The Makings of a Politician

What makes a politician a successful politician?
Plato believed in the Philosopher-King as an ideal ruler of a just society. The Philosopher-King is one who understands what to do and how to do it. The Philosopher-King would have the necessary power (being a king) to implement the chosen path.
And yet Plato was strongly against the rhetorician, the practitioner of rhetoric, the art of speech. Plato believed that the rhetorician knew only how to talk, and nothing of what he (it was always a "he" back then) was talking about - the truth of what he was talking about.

But we are left with the problem of mobilizing a people. A ruler is only as good and as effective as the belief in him or her by the society being led. Without belief in the ruler and in what the ruler is trying to achieve, the populace cannot follow and cannot implement.

For effective leadership, a leader must understand the ideals at least as much as Plato's Philosopher-King, yet the leader cannot be a king. Not in this hemisphere, anyway. We, as a people, are too educated and too free-thinking to follow a monarchy, even an enlightened one.

In this section of our planet, we require leaders that can communicate to us what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how we can be mobilized to actuate these ideals.

What is communication if not the act (and the art) of using language to make other people agree with you and do things that you want them to do.

A political candidate can succeed without this element. Passive democracy gives us a choice between the lesser of two (or more) evils. Active democracy gives us the option to take part in our decisions.

The successful politician is the politician who can mobilize a people into an active democracy. The successful politician is both a Philosopher and a Rhetorician; Communicating the ideals to the masses and creating a shared vision for the greatest possible number. A winning politician can illustrate, but only a successful politician can en-vision - enable a vision to be shared by all.

Watching Barack Obama tonight speak to a diverse and united mass audience in Denver, I thought to myself that this is what it must have been like with Kennedy - JK and Bobby.

Barack Obama has a vision, an understanding of the truth. Barack Obama can communicate that vision and make people understand it and share it.

Barack Obama is the epitome of the Philosopher-Rhetorician. A successful politician. A leader.