pick a religion, pick a church, give generously. Read as part of your faith and keep up with it. Don’t get caught out in the lies the current oval office occupant has.
start a massive Farley File.
Getting into law is a good idea because it’ll teach you the language you’ll be speaking. After all, if you’ll be writing and dealing with legislation, you need to know the specifics of how to craft it and understand it, not just the basic ideas or issues. Also, a LOT of prominent politicians seem to have started off as prosecutors. Rudy Giuliani is one, John Kerry is another. I’m sure there are plenty more that I don’t know of. It helped them make a name for themselves as public servants* and fills a good spot in a national politician’s resume (they all love to say they’re ‘tough on crime,’ and having put some criminals away helps back it up). Also, in the national consciousness lawyer often = money-loving sleazebag. Prosecutors don’t have that reputation.
I think this in particular is big. Whether you work as a lawyer, a businessman, or whatever, people go into elected office after becoming prominent citizens in some way.
I’m not sure Clinton’s book will help you that much. I’d invest in some cheaper books: more general biographies of America’s past leaders. You can learn their lessons and stories that way, in addition to finding out how they went into politics.
Getting into local politics is good — with one big exception — as in the following true story. I work at a local newspaper. One lady in our town had been doing moderately well at a local office and felt as if she might be interested in trying for something a little higher. She plunked down a bunch of dough to attend a seminar put on by her party for people interested in becoming candidates.
The first day there, pencils sharpened, she’s chatting eagerly with others in the room when the seminar presenter comes into the room and starts with an admonition along these lines:
“Whatever you do, do NOT start out on the local school board. If all your major teams bring back state championships in their respective sports; if test scores rise higher every year, and are comfortably higher than the state and national averages; if every budget passes smoothly; if the teachers and administrators are universially resepected and admired in the community, and if any high school graduate in your district who wants to go to college is awarded a full-ride scholarship by the college of his or her choice, then and only then will not start out your next race in the hole. Anything less than that level of perfection, and you won’t be elected dogcatcher.”
The lady looked at her clean notebook and thought about the hundreds of dollars she’d spent to be there, and considered her eight year career on the school board. She picked up her notebook and pencils and walked out. She never did run for anything else, even re-election to the school board. Instead, she became very involved with a local museum. (Her husband, a realtor, sold my wife and I our current house six years ago. They are a charming couple)
Don’t know how correct the expert’s analysis was at the time (this was back in the 1970s) or still is today, but it sounds as if it might still be valid.