Staffers tend to mimic their bosses, to take their key from them.

The author, at the time a Carter speechwriter in the 1980 campaign, showed visible distress at his boss's performance and was warned by a friend in the traveling press, lest he become the story.

The author attributes part of the Carter-Reagan divide to their respective attitudes toward the city from which they governed. Carter was deeply suspicious of its coziness. Reagan intended to enjoy his temporary home even while delivering it from its reigning ideology.

He'd made a name for himself out there in the world beyond not just in spite of the distinctly unfashionable persona he presented, but, perhaps, BECAUSE of it.