Falling under a powerful mentor’s spell shifts a reformer’s focus from issues to maneuvers

Evidence

“When Robert would come over to the house for dinner now,” recalled his brother Paul, “it was ‘Al Smith this’ and ‘Al Smith that.’ All he could talk about was Smith—what Smith had said that day when Robert walked him home or about some idea Smith had had.” The man who had always talked—and who still talked—of most politicians with such scorn talked of Smith with respect and admiration and something that was close to reverence. Moses’ brother and friends saw nothing wrong with such a feeling. But they couldn’t help noticing that, in discussing Smith, Moses was talking less and less about the great issues of the time with which Smith had been involved and more and more about political maneuvers which the former Governor had described to him. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 586

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with how ambitious subordinates mirror their powerful patron’s values in both Naqvi’s Home Boy and Frost’s A Very Minor Prophet. — connects to: A political mentor can convert an uncompromising idealist into a pragmatic operative — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 595; Failed idealism converts reformers into concealment-driven operators — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 769; A compelling mentor can reroute a career from applied to basic research — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 94

Broader Connections

• A political mentor can convert an uncompromising idealist into a pragmatic operative #corroborates (0.92) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 595
• Failed idealism converts reformers into concealment-driven operators #expands (0.88) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 769
• A compelling mentor can reroute a career from applied to basic research #complicates (0.72) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 94