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Comment by mitthrowaway2 | Hacker News Reader

In my experience, it does require a lot of skills. You won't notice them if you only interact with politicians through reading about them in the news, but successful politicians have a lot of charisma, are very good at remembering names and faces of people they meet once at a crowded party, and are good at spinning answers to make everyone hear what they wanted to hear.

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The most essential talent required of politicians is to extract the greatest amount of donations, funding for themselves and their party. Below the media polished image, it is all about money. Power is about being able to get the money.

I hadn't realized America glorifies the almighty dollar to the extent that it does until recently. Everything boils down to this; I feel like a fool.

Most of what you've written just boils down to the ability to being a good liar. :)

That's an extremely uncharitable take. Especially when nothing about the post suggested that.

The deeper point is that the skills that were mentioned are very important in terms of getting along with a variety of people.

>nothing about the post suggested that.

>[they] are good at spinning answers to make everyone hear what they wanted to hear.

To me that definitely reads like the original comment was alluding to an ability to bend the truth or frame things in an advantageous way, which is essentially lying's brother, manipulation.

Besides, politicians have earned their reputation a hundred times over. Good luck convincing anyone that it's unfair to suggest politicians are liars.

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