Politics & Power Quote by Art Buchwald

Buchwald’s line lands because it treats politics like a sport you can fail at on a technicality, then quietly implies that the “technicality” is the whole system. “Light enough” is doing double duty: it’s a locker-room joke about weight classes and a moral jab at the airy, consequence-free way political careers can be built. The punchline isn’t that politics is hard to enter; it’s that entry depends on being insubstantial - unburdened by scruple, by consistency, by the kind of gravity that keeps ordinary people awake at night.

As a journalist and satirist who spent decades translating Washington’s rituals into consumer-grade absurdity, Buchwald understood that power often rewards buoyancy: the candidate who can float above previous statements, the official who can pivot without strain, the operative who treats ideology as wardrobe. The “team” framing is crucial subtext. Teams prize loyalty, not truth; they run plays, they protect their own, they punish anyone who freelances. If you’re “heavy” - tethered to facts, empathy, or genuine responsibility - you slow the game down.

Coming from mid-to-late 20th-century Washington, when television polished politics into performance and messaging became its own industry, the joke reads like an obituary for seriousness. Buchwald isn’t simply mocking politicians; he’s mocking the selection mechanism that keeps choosing the weightless and calling it leadership.