"The most important attribute for a professional politician is time, the time necessary to devote oneself to learning the intricacies of the political art. Also if the politician is not to derive a living entirely ‘off’ of politics and live ‘for’ politics, he must also be “economically dispensable” meaning he does not depend upon politics at all for an income. In modern times former President Franklin Roosevelt, also former Governor of New York came from one of the wealthiest and oldest families in New York going back to the original Dutch settlers. Even more recently, former governor Eliot Spitzer’s father was Bernard Spitzer, a New York real estate tycoon who owned many large apartment and office buildings in New York City. Gov. Spitzer first as attorney general and later as governor built his reputation as the “Sheriff of Wall St” despite his wealthy background. Weber says, “under normal conditions, the politician must be economically independent of the income politics can bring him. However according to this meaning Mitt Romney would also be Weber's ideal politician. This means quite simply, that the politician must be wealthy or must have a personal position in life which yields a sufficient income”
This passage explains how important time can be for a politician or just anybody in general. When a person wants something and becomes committed to it, they have to put the time and effort in order to succeed. This applies to our everyday life, if we don't apply ourselves in school; we wont get the grade that we want, same with politics. They have to put in the time and work to see results. Another part of this paragraph that really caught my attention was how they speak about not depending on politics for an income. Most of the people who are in politics are already pretty wealthy, but like any other job you would expect to get paid. This paragraph talks about the successful politicians who didn't count on politics for money. They used other ways to build there reputation, I would say that was very humble of them; they helped others as much as they could. I chose this paragraph because I feel like there are certain parts that I could relate too, also I enjoy reading about successful politicians and how they managed to built a reputation without depending on politics.
While I do agree with you people to need to have the time to invest into politics in order to be a good politicians, I think that they cannot be too distant from the struggle the common citizen goes through. How can a politician who himself nor children have been a student at a public school really understand what the public school system really needs. If they do make time to listen to the problem of the general public how would they know what the people really want.
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