If you hold a local political position, such as school board president, you can have an enormous and direct influence over the lives of many of your neighbors. Paradoxically, if you are at the very top of government, you can struggle to make any difference at all. I remember, in a more innocent age, feeling real trepidation about the prospect of James Richard Perry, of Paint Creek, serving as secretary of energy, which mostly, despite its name, oversees nuclear security and high-level physics research. I felt a certain appreciation for the former governor and his great political skill, but the thought of him taking responsibility for the slowly deteriorating plutonium waste pits at the Hanford Site gave me pause. Years later, though, I talked with some…