Close personal familiarity with a governor is how unelected advisers gain power

Evidence

Moses would be one of the group that several times a week dined with Smith, at a table filled with his children’s friends and made merry by the jokes he kept cracking with the servants, and after dinner returned to the Executive Chamber to participate in the legendary bill-vetoing and -signing sessions conducted over bottles of Scotch and Irish whiskey, which featured impromptu skits, songs and soft-shoe routines by the Governor—and his almost uncanny ability to recall details of other bills he had read over the years. “Look at this one,” he would growl. “I fought against it six years ago and here it is again, just tricked up a little.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 605

Categorization

• XREF: This anticipates the central theme of The Power Broker — that informal access and relationships, not formal office, are the true currency of power. Links to Caro’s later material on how Moses built influence through the Smith circle. — connects to: Governors defer to officials who can actually get big things done — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 1405
• QUESTION: What is the source for the specific claim that Smith could recall bills read over the years with uncanny accuracy? This detail matters for understanding Smith’s governance.

Broader Connections

• Governors defer to officials who can actually get big things done #qualifies (0.75) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 1405