Life & Wisdom Quote by Andrew H. Malcolm

Politics, in this joke, isn’t a civic calling so much as a contact sport with better suits. Andrew H. Malcolm’s alderman “confession” works because it pretends to be wholesome - a man striving for health - then snaps into the darker truth: the appeal of public office, at least in the Chicago-machine imagination, is proximity to force. Jogging is boring precisely because it’s rule-bound and nonviolent; politics, by contrast, offers sanctioned aggression, a place where “hitting” can mean patronage punishments, zoning revenge, backroom threats, and the small humiliations that make local power feel tangible.

The line lands in Chicago for a reason. “Alderman” is the perfect vessel for this kind of satire: hyperlocal authority, often opaque, historically entwined with patronage, ward bosses, and the folklore of City Hall hardball. Malcolm doesn’t need to name corruption; he lets the audience supply it. The humor depends on shared cultural shorthand that Chicago politics is tough, transactional, and occasionally brutal - less West Wing idealism than precinct-level score-settling.

Subtextually, the quote also punctures the self-improvement narrative modern public figures love to sell. The alderman frames his preference as a matter of personal taste, but the punchline reveals a temperament: exercise is desirable only if it includes dominance. Malcolm’s cynicism is surgical: it suggests that for some politicians, the “public service” is secondary to the pleasure of impact - the feeling that you can make someone move, or hurt, just because you can.