Rating: 
Summary: This book is highly over-rated.
Review: Hedrick Smith's "The Power Game" is nothing but a reporters view of how Washington seems to be for him. All the book does is bash and crap on the political figures that our young Americans need to look-to. Unfortunately with trash like this book, everyone gets mixed ideas of how the US Gov't really works. Two thumbs down.
Rating:
Summary: Thumbs Down
Review: I gave up on this book, as it was just a blob of words, with new real sharp analysis, nor a razor sharp mind behind it. I was extremely disappointed, because I really wanted to read a book ABOUT what this book is about.
Rating: 
Summary: Inside Guide
Review: Perhaps a political science classic - Hedrick Smith provides an insightful glimpse not only into Washington's political scene but offers a phenomenal analysis of politics and power itself. he presents why so much of the system has become so cumbersome and complex as people fight for power and control of various aspects. He describes PACs and lobbying groups and their impact on the political system. He also describes how the various players in Wahsington have grown over time. Take this interesting tidbit from the book: Journalists: 1,522 were acredited to Congrssional press galleries in 1961 and 5,250 in 1987; the 1980 census showed 12,612 journalists citywide. When Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, I was told, he broke the news to the entire White House press corps - twenty-five reporters. By mid-1987, some 1,708 people had regular White House press passes. So enormous had the wider political community grown - lobbyists, lawyers, journalists, policy think tanks, defense or health consultants, and the hotels, offices, accountants, resterautns, and the service industries that support them - that by 1979 this whole nongovernmental sector actually outnumbered federal government employees in Washington! Other fascinating facts like that are found throughout the book helping to maintin the interest of the reader. If you want to read a book about Washington, politics and the ultimate Power Game, this is the one for you. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Inside Guide
Review: Perhaps a political science classic - Hedrick Smith provides an insightful glimpse not only into Washington's political scene but offers a phenomenal analysis of politics and power itself. he presents why so much of the system has become so cumbersome and complex as people fight for power and control of various aspects. He describes PACs and lobbying groups and their impact on the political system. He also describes how the various players in Wahsington have grown over time. Take this interesting tidbit from the book: Journalists: 1,522 were acredited to Congrssional press galleries in 1961 and 5,250 in 1987; the 1980 census showed 12,612 journalists citywide. When Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, I was told, he broke the news to the entire White House press corps - twenty-five reporters. By mid-1987, some 1,708 people had regular White House press passes. So enormous had the wider political community grown - lobbyists, lawyers, journalists, policy think tanks, defense or health consultants, and the hotels, offices, accountants, resterautns, and the service industries that support them - that by 1979 this whole nongovernmental sector actually outnumbered federal government employees in Washington! Other fascinating facts like that are found throughout the book helping to maintin the interest of the reader. If you want to read a book about Washington, politics and the ultimate Power Game, this is the one for you. You won't be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Pig Circus On The Potomac
Review: Talk about your weighty tomes. Hedrick Smith's "The Power Game" takes on the story of politics in Washington, D.C., circa the 1980s. Not only does he dig into every subject imaginable, like the importance of staffers, the intricacies of foreign policy work, and the behemoth of defense spending, but he takes more than 700 pages doing so.
"The Power Game" works best as a series of anecdotes about political life, and the passions that ran riot across the national landscape at various times in the second half of the 20th century. Smith gets some tremendous candor from many of his subjects, like former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas, who tells Smith that his "substantive work" suffered most when he was most in the public spotlight. "I was probably a lesser senator when my numbers were going up," Tsongas confesses.
There's great anecdotes about presidential power, too. The book begins with preparations to convert a senator's rambler-style ranch house into a bunker as Ronald Reagan plans a sleepover there, and then dovetails into an account of the symbolic importance of the office. Smith's style is to present such an anecdote at the start of each chapter or section, then offer some insights and overview.
The anecdotes are great, like the one that features Lesley Stahl anchoring a CBS attack piece on Reagan. After, she gets a call from a White House senior official. She expects a tirade, but instead the guy thanks her. Stahl's acid commentary was aired over image after image of Reagan in carefully staged feel-good set pieces, sort of by way of ironic contrast. But the senior official told Stahl no one cared what she said, it was the images that would resonate with the viewer, and those images supported Reagan. Alas, to her chagrin, he was right.
The problem I have is with the analysis and overview. At times Smith is very dry, writing at length about congressional backroom games, staff work, and supplemental appropriations in a way that's probably too elementary for the poly sci student and too dull for everyone else. Elsewhere, he is just wrong, nowhere more so than when he talks about the presidency as a debilitated institution. He discourses on such things as the Democratic control of Congress and the dominance of PAC money as if they are things that will always be with us, when time has shown him wrong.
The last chapter is the book's weakest, not because Smith attempts to offer prescriptions for the ills he ably depicts in the rest of the book, but for the "this could work, but then again..." tone he takes as he offers them up. Smith is a typical reporter; he wants to find fault but not commit himself to anything that smacks of a solution, since his inner cynic tells him such nostrums only bite you back in the end.
There's a great book about Ronald Reagan and his impact on D.C. in "The Power Game" which I sort of wish Smith had hacked from the rest of this book and released in its stead. Smith is no fan of Reagan, but he's a keenly perceptive critic, not blindly partisan but very mainstream media in his generic liberal disdain. He makes some strong points about Reagan's less-than-positive legacy on the economic front, specifically by channeling the artful turncoat David Stockman, who ran the numbers for the early Reagan budgets, then turned around and told everyone Reagan was just in business to give tax breaks to the wealthy. Reagan also got run around by Congress more than popular history remembers, and Smith is there with the play-by-play.
But did Reagan's first term in office see less growth in the national economy than the lone term of his predecessor, Jimmy Carter? Smith says so, but I sure don't remember it that way. He also lambastes Reagan for things that history proved him right on, like his handling of the Soviets, the Contras, and tax relief, and for Star Wars, where the jury is still out. By the end, Smith has worked up such a head of steam that he lumps Reagan and Kennedy alongside Carter, Ford, Nixon, and Johnson as failed presidents. [Here's a clue: When they name a major airport after a president, it probably means he did something right.]
The problem is that the premise of "The Power Game," that Congress is winning, is flawed. Since Smith keeps hitting on that point, it keeps sounding a false note.
But Smith is a solid journalist, and at its best, which it frequently is, "The Power Game" is a fine inside-the-Beltway account of what went on in Washington during a time of great change. In some ways, the book is valuable historical reading as much for what it gets wrong as for what it gets right.
Rating:
Summary: Eyes Wide Open
Review: This book is really good. I have to read this thick book for my AP Civic class over the summer and I give two thumbs way up for this masterpiece.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good
Review: This book should be required reading for undergraduates alongside a good American Government textbook. As opposed to textbook description of our governmental process, Smith's book digs a little deeper to describe how American government - and politics - really works. It is big but fairly readable. There are some flaws: the book is a bit dated as it was written in the late 80s (e.g. Smith talks about the problems of PACs in campaign but today's problem is soft money); there are a surprisingly decent number of typos and editing oversights; finally, like I mentioned, it is a large book and at some points, few as they are, where the book drags. At the least, a good teacher could use the book and pull out certain chapters that are more pertinent. ENJOY!
Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: This book should be required reading for undergraduates alongside a good American Government textbook. As opposed to textbook description of our governmental process, Smith's book digs a little deeper to describe how American government - and politics - really works. It is big but fairly readable. There are some flaws: the book is a bit dated as it was written in the late 80s (e.g. Smith talks about the problems of PACs in campaign but today's problem is soft money); there are a surprisingly decent number of typos and editing oversights; finally, like I mentioned, it is a large book and at some points, few as they are, where the book drags. At the least, a good teacher could use the book and pull out certain chapters that are more pertinent. ENJOY!
Rating: 
Summary: Cure for the insomniacs
Review: This book was assigned to me for summer reading for Advance Placement Government class. I got it through borders and paid high price for it, I highly suggest buying it used through amazon.com. In the beginning this novel seemed very interesting with its unique insider perspective however this insider perspective drowned the novel with annoying anecdotes. The perspective was lost with countless examples that were perfect cure for when I was in desperate need of sleep. The author states his views and makes his points in the first page of two of every chapter and for the next 10-20 pages it just filled with every moment of his 30+ year experience at D.C. This novel is 700+ pages long and could very easily be trimmed down to under a 100 and still have a greater impact. So I would advise to buy it used then just read the first page of every section.
Rating:
Summary: From Steve Largent to Barry Goldwater to Tip O'Neill
Review: Though he talks a little too much about the Redskins, this one is still worth studying in the classroom.
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