Review of HARDBALL (by Chris Matthews) Before I started reading the book Hardball, by Chris Matthews, I had a preconceived idea of what the content of this book would be. From the title of the book I drew the conclusion that Matthews would write more about the darker side of politics and how it is ‘really’ played. I don’t really know much about politics, and frankly, I don’t care much for politics. However, when I hear the word hardball in the context of politics, I think of blood shed. I think of dirty tricks and blackmail and money changing hands in dark places. I even think of the mafia to some degree when I hear the word hardball. Perhaps my notion of hardball was a bit more than what Chris Matthews describes in his book. After reading the book, I think I understood Chris Matthews’ meaning of the word hardball. Maybe I had the wrong idea, or my idea was too exaggerated. Hardball, as I understood after reading this book is “hard-politics”, or “raw politics”. If every instance of the word ‘ball’ in the book would be changed to “politics”, the meaning would remain intact. Therefore, this book describes the art of playing “ball” in Washington and being successful at it. My first impressions of the book were that it was easy to read, made very interesting by the anecdotes Mathews includes, very informative, very logical and understandable. Just as I found out after reading the first book by Susan Guber, the strategies involved with politics can be seamlessly applied to life in general. The book teaches a series of axioms that all politicians ought to learn to be successful. There’s a lot to be learnt from the different tactics described and I can see how someone following these strategies would have an easier time ‘getting ahead’ in life. However, I must also make mention that some of the methods he talks about are not exactly w...
