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The Best Job in Politics: Exploring How Governors Succeed as Policy Leaders
Governors―both in, and now out of, office―see the job as the best in politics. Why is that? Drawing on a survey of former governors, personal interviews, as well as gubernatorial memoirs and biographies, Rosenthal shows students how and why governors succeed as policy leaders and makes a case as to why some governors are better at leveraging the institutional advantages of the office.
288 pages, Paperback
First published March 6, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 22, 2025
I barely got a chance to read this lol, but I felt I still wanted to include it in my GoodReads. The main takeaway I received from this book is maybe governors truly do have the best job in politics. They can advance their agenda, leave a positive legacy, and face less public scrutiny. This book really got me thinking about how a lot of people, myself included, measure a "good" governor by their personality and likeability, and not as much on the work they do.
February 25, 2024
Alan Rosenthal is one of the more respected writers on state legislatures, but in this book he tries to explore how governors work with legislatures. The book does demonstrate some important truths that are underappreciated about governors.
The first surprise to me is how central their relationship with the legislature was. About half of the governors the author surveyed (he surveyed 75 former governors who had served between 1980 and 2010) had previously been state legislators and most considered dealing with the legislature one of their most important jobs. The second is how central education was to their governorship. The vast majority of respondents saw education as one of their most important tasks, ahead of economic development, which was second. The budget was both one of the most important tools of the governors and one of their most important jobs. The ability of governors to present their budgets and their ability to line item veto the legislators' budget allowed them to fundamentally shape the nature of the state budget and also use it occasionally to extract votes from legislators.
The problem with this book, however, is that it relies far too much on these surveys that are not overly informative, and that it takes governors' word for what works and what doesn't. The fact that the surveys shows the vast majority of governors say they got most of what they wanted from the legislature, and that most major policy initiatives came from them is not surprising. The fact that the author also tries to run regressions on this tiny pool of self-interested respondents does not seem very helpful. Many of the stories of individual governors, especially the powerful John Engler of Michigan and Jim Edgar of Illinois, both Republicans who ran Democrat states with strong hands, are fascinating, but they blur together as dozens and dozens of governors names and stories keep popping up.
This is an important look at the under researched job of governor, but I'm not sure how informative it is relative to other books like Kousser's and Philip's The Power of American Governors.
The first surprise to me is how central their relationship with the legislature was. About half of the governors the author surveyed (he surveyed 75 former governors who had served between 1980 and 2010) had previously been state legislators and most considered dealing with the legislature one of their most important jobs. The second is how central education was to their governorship. The vast majority of respondents saw education as one of their most important tasks, ahead of economic development, which was second. The budget was both one of the most important tools of the governors and one of their most important jobs. The ability of governors to present their budgets and their ability to line item veto the legislators' budget allowed them to fundamentally shape the nature of the state budget and also use it occasionally to extract votes from legislators.
The problem with this book, however, is that it relies far too much on these surveys that are not overly informative, and that it takes governors' word for what works and what doesn't. The fact that the surveys shows the vast majority of governors say they got most of what they wanted from the legislature, and that most major policy initiatives came from them is not surprising. The fact that the author also tries to run regressions on this tiny pool of self-interested respondents does not seem very helpful. Many of the stories of individual governors, especially the powerful John Engler of Michigan and Jim Edgar of Illinois, both Republicans who ran Democrat states with strong hands, are fascinating, but they blur together as dozens and dozens of governors names and stories keep popping up.
This is an important look at the under researched job of governor, but I'm not sure how informative it is relative to other books like Kousser's and Philip's The Power of American Governors.
October 5, 2025
These state gov. Books are surprising me !!!
August 23, 2014
I nearly jumped for joy when I first came across this book. Since a young age I have been fascinated by the U.S. political process, but there always seemed to be a dearth of books about governors - as if they take a back seat to the federal Executive Branch. But anyone who follows politics knows this is a gross misconception.
Author Alan Rosenthal interviewed past and present governors to help him fill in the picture of state chief executives. What he found was a fascinating picture. While every state has a governor who is popularly elected and who leads the executive branch, the governor's influence and power varies widely from one state to the next. From a "weak" gubernatorial system in Texas and North Carolina on one end, to "strong" governors in New York and New Jersey on the other, you see an office that is as powerful and influential as the citizens of that state want it to be.
One anecdote I found interesting in this volume was when the author interviewed two former governors who had moved up to the U.S. Senate. He asked them whether they preferred being governor or senator. Without hesitation they answered "governor, for sure." They went on to explain that even in a weak gubernatorial system where power is diluted among many agencies, the governor still wields extraordinary influence and power that he doesn't have in the Senate of the United States.
As someone who aspires to serving as governor of my home state one day, I found this book to be educational. For others who read it, I hope you come to appreciate your governor more.
Author Alan Rosenthal interviewed past and present governors to help him fill in the picture of state chief executives. What he found was a fascinating picture. While every state has a governor who is popularly elected and who leads the executive branch, the governor's influence and power varies widely from one state to the next. From a "weak" gubernatorial system in Texas and North Carolina on one end, to "strong" governors in New York and New Jersey on the other, you see an office that is as powerful and influential as the citizens of that state want it to be.
One anecdote I found interesting in this volume was when the author interviewed two former governors who had moved up to the U.S. Senate. He asked them whether they preferred being governor or senator. Without hesitation they answered "governor, for sure." They went on to explain that even in a weak gubernatorial system where power is diluted among many agencies, the governor still wields extraordinary influence and power that he doesn't have in the Senate of the United States.
As someone who aspires to serving as governor of my home state one day, I found this book to be educational. For others who read it, I hope you come to appreciate your governor more.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews