"We may be seeing two of the most nationally visible local offices that will be decided by politicians' successfully achieving a coalition of black and Latino voters."

"Most of the objects are not as well-preserved as this one, of course," Sinor continued, sitting with that incredible stillness that only a professional politician or actor achieves.

No matter what Mr. Putin decides, there already are indications that time may ultimately do what no politician has yet achieved.

The purpose of this influence is that politicians and lobbyists can achieve their political goals.

Across the city, politicians noted that Mr. Jackson's campaign had won something that virtually no politician had ever achieved: the unified support of almost all black and Hispanic political leaders.

Thereafter the military politician whom Dulles had favored, Mobutu, achieved complete power by 1965.

The government's problems are giving the ex-mayor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a chance at a national electoral victory in 2004 that no aggressively Islamic politician has ever achieved.

Strauss noted that thinkers of the first rank, going back to Plato, had raised the problem of whether good and effective politicians could be completely truthful and still achieve the necessary ends of their society.

No politician achieves everything they set out to, but we can only hope that this government's record is better than the last.

In those countries where youth unemployment is high, the public is bound to ask how it can be that their politicians are not achieving the same good results as politicians in other countries.