I was, perhaps, a bit mean in my entry yesterday. It not mean then certainly unfair. All politicians are slaves to their own sense of ambition; why should the young Mayor of Pittsburgh be any different?

I spent three very long years working in local politics in Pittsburgh. I try to say little of that experience because it is so varied and so complex in my memory that I feel I would do a great injustice to write about these experiences in any type of direct memoir. I am often told at dinner parties, or when out for drinks, that I have a hundred great stories from my short experience being a legislative briefcase boy and constituent caseworker. Perhaps this is true, but not unique. All former staffers with a decent long-term memory can frame their experiences into stories; we all have them and share them with each other. People in other professions do the same thing.

I learned enough in those three short, yet very long years in terms of my human development, that there are many types of people attracted to political work. Among the young people who go into the field (I am intentionally excluding older, more seasoned veterans who have their own hierarchies and motivations) are principally two kinds of people.

On one side, are the youthful idealists who eventually, after a rotten stint or two of staffing, will go on to better careers in the law or in “real” government, working for an agency, or maybe, a non-profit. Maybe they will become teachers or reporters. Their future is open once the scales are lifted from their jaded eyes and they look around with a sigh and say, “I simply can’t do this anymore.” These people are diligent community workers; they are the kind of people that legitimately try to help constituents because they have that sense of idealism pressing upon their shoulders, whispering daily into their ears, that they are making a difference. Even if they aren’t.

These folks and very different from those who work in, what I will call for convenience, the more political side. These people are motivated by ideology, ego, or just basic competitiveness. They love politics because it provides a psychological gratification. Some are romantics – they love the idea of living in the real life West Wing while working out of some grubby campaign office in a suburban strip mall. Some are power-hungry – they seek to crush the opposition because they like the power involved with crushing and conniving. Some are ideologues – they legitimately drink the party cool-aid and are crusading for moral or social causes. They are tough people; they are hacks.

Both of these types have been with us since Rome. Brutus was an idealist and Cassius was a hack – it’s the simple nature of our political human development that we can so easily fall into these categorizations. Jack Burden, the self-conscious narrator of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, is the classic man in the middle of these two worlds, a tough place to be, and the reason Burden was burdened with alcoholic self-loathing throughout the book.

Although the Mayor is an elected official and not a staffer, his age and accidental authority, not to mention his behavior, is more staffer-esque than that of a chief executive. I have read some interviews with Mayor Ravenstahl and I have followed his antics and scandals casually over this last year. His behavior isn’t consistent with that of the idealist; it is, instead, consistent with the behavior of the campaign hacks I knew in my short-lived days writing briefing memos and fetching coffee. The love of perks, the celebrity stalking, the parties and photo ops, the complete lack of policy, and the focus on ego over substance all are demonstrative of a man who’s political motivation is personal ambition – not of community service. It’s easy to say you’re interested in these things; those who legitimately are, though, are consumed with it. Fixing problems is their motivation for going into the office every day.

With Ravenstahl, you don’t get the impression he’s burning the midnight oil studying policy. Surely, you don’t need to be a policy wonk to be a great leader. But you need to show that you at least care. Unfortunately, the Mayor hasn’t shown anything but an affinity for empty phrases and tired initiatives. Both are the mark of that dubious label – political hack.