Michael Goldman works out of a windowless office, the walls of which are lined with full bookshelves. Every so often, a clump of binders or a few precariously balanced books with titles like "Mudslinging: A History of America's Dirtiest Political Campaigns" rise like a little oasis out of this desert of pine and cinderblock.
When Goldman speaks, his jovial, candid manner fills the formerly empty space, and it becomes a place conducive to laughter, ideas, and incisive analysis. He is happy to talk and is full of opinions.
With humble beginnings in local and state government, Goldman made his name as one of the areas foremost political consultants. His former clients include nearly 100 hopeful governors, congressmen, presidents, and state politicians. Goldman's unique from-the-bottom-up view of the political power structure and his acumen for conducting honest, effective campaigns set him apart from his colleagues.
Having left the consulting world, Goldman now hosts the Bloomberg Radio News daily political program. Simply Put and a short weekend show called A Touch of Clash.
A regular on the college lecture circuit, Goldman has taught in universities for over 20 years, taking a full-time lecturer position in the political science department at Tufts in 1999.
Forty years ago, no one would have expected the Malden, Mass., native to go this far. To say that I was a mediocre student was insulting to people who were mediocre, Goldman said. He came from a blue collar family with ambitions no greater than a steady job at the post office or Boston Electric.
The arrival of the Vietnam War changed everything. "You went to college or to war," he said. Goldman chose college but had no idea what he wanted to do. "I had no reason to believe that I could succeed at anything," he said.
Goldman attributes his initial lack of ambition to what he described as an upper-lower-class childhood, spent feeling unempowered and unequal to his middle-class peers.
Goldman explained that he had two options: ignore the system totally or to find a niche within it. "If you have the need to feel empowered, politics is where you go," he said.
After graduating from Boston University with a master's in Political and Governmental Public Affairs, Goldman entered the brave new world of political consulting. He likened the fast-paced creativity, wit, and luck of consulting to those same qualities that characterized Hollywood at the turn of the century. "Let's put up a play," Goldman said, quoting Mickey Rooney.
Also like Hollywood circa 1900, the political consulting field was still building itself when Goldman began, meaning he had no hierarchies to climb or bureaucracies to tackle in order to forge a place for himself.
Goldman started with small campaigns. His first paid gig was for Kenneth V. Desmond, a candidate for a Massachusetts town school board. His future clients would be higher up on the political ladder, and his campaign budgets would grow significantly, but Goldman approached each of his candidates with a realistic, honorable attitude.
"I tended to take the person who was the most difficult kind of candidate... The people I took were pictures of me, people who were not empowered and who were trying to break in," he said. "You tend to lose more of those, but the wins are much larger."
Yet Goldman's memories of his career do not revolve around his wins and losses but around what his work could do for his community. "Real people live real lives that aren't about the stock market or the GNP," he said. "If someone is getting screwed by this country's bureaucracy, I wanted to be the person who knew someone that could help right away."
With that thought in mind, Goldman continued to traverse the world of political consulting, working with candidates like Ted Kennedy, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, and Bill Bradley. In 1979, he opened his own political consulting firm, Goldman Associates.
Goldman recalled an episode that took place when he was with Ted Kennedy in 1980, sitting in a room filled with some of the biggest political stars of the era. "I was there, looking like a dope, and then someone said to me, 'Kid, always remember that everybody comes from somewhere!'" Goldman said. "Think about that!"
Such incidents, combined with the fact that Goldman has spent most of his life helping people to be successful, contribute to a unique perspective on risk and achievement.
"If you start to perceive yourself and understand that you can go as far as ability, skill, talent, and luck will take you, then it's okay. Nothing intimidates you anymore," Goldman said.
Goldman cited his friend and former client Bill Clinton as an example of his philosophy: "He didn't let who he was at the start of his life stop how far he could go," Goldman said. "Ultimately, that's what being successful and great is really about... How are you going to let the things that diminish you stand in the way of achieving the goal you really want to have?"
Despite his propensity to believe in his candidates, Goldman permanently left political consulting in 2004 in order to dedicate more time to his other passions: radio and teaching. Over the years, he has hosted a series of talk radio programs on Boston radio.
"I use the forum of talk radio not to argue, but to educate and inform," he said. Goldman balances his talk show with his lecturing at Tufts. "Teaching continues to give me perspective," Goldman said, explaining that it helps him to understand the difference between his world and the world inhabited by his students. "I can't imagine a better political science department in the country," he said.
So, would working at the best political science department in the country enable Goldman to guess who will be president in 2008? "You!" he said, launching into hypothetical campaign details. He laughed and then became serious. "But it really could be you," Goldman said. "That's the great thing about this game - everything's a mystery!"
So it is for Professor Goldman himself: "The road not taken is the only road I've ever been interested in traveling. I expect that I'll continue to seek what's around the next blind bend," he said.
CORRECTION: Due to a production error, quotation marks were missing from several comments made by Tufts professor Michael Goldman in a four-paragraph section of yesterday's Features article entitled, "From Bill Clinton to Bloomberg ... radio, that is."
