http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11689933 Chris Mathews here is the original - below is my precis
1. "I LIKE A MAN WHO GRINS WHEN HE FIGHTS!"
Churchill loved the political life from the start. Churchill loved the give-and-take, the wild, over-the-top language politics permits. But as colorful as Churchill could be in lampooning his rivals, he bore no grudges.
When Lord Beaverbrook was asked to name Churchill’s chief virtue, the best thing about the man, the great press lord said "magnanimity."
2. SPEAK OUT!
"All the years I have been in the House of Commons," Churchill once said, "I have always said to myself one thing: Do Not Interrupt! - Churchill was never able to keep to that resolution. He was forever speaking out.
Elected to parliament as a Tory, he used one of his first speeches - after just three months in the Commons - to attack the party leadership for a military budget he called excessive.
And because he spoke up in the 1930s against the rising danger of Adolf Hitler, he had the "street cred" to lead Britain in the 1940s.
3. GIVE IT TO THEM STRAIGHT!
In Philadelphia, the mayor, the fire chief and the police chief were all standing on the curb during a four-alarm fire.
They were present on the scene and they fed the press the information as they got it.
That’s the key to it! - show up, and tell the truth as you get it - no "rolling disclosure" feeding it out when you’ve got yourself covered - or when it’s politically convenient.
4. KNOW THE POWER OF SPIRIT
Churchill knew that national morale was everything. That’s why he told the British people in his most famous address to "brace" themselves.
His talk of Britain serving in its "finest hour" went to his people’s notion of themselves.
Roosevelt knew it, too. Remember what he said on taking office in the depths of the Great Depression? "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
Or Ronald Reagan and how he talked of the "the boys" who won at Normandy forty years before, his tribute to the astronauts who had just perished aboard the Challenger.
5. MOTIVE!
A very smart Canadian pollster once told me that leaders share three great attributes: motive, passion and spontaneity.
Ask any politician or office-holder "Why are you there?"
For Abraham Lincoln, it was to end the expansion of slavery and, later, to save the union
For Ronald Reagan - and every cab driver knew it - it was to bring down communism abroad and big government at home.
"In politics when you are in doubt," as Churchill said way back in 1927, "do nothing." "In politics, when you are in doubt what to say, say what you really think."
Polling and the constant positioning and re-positioning it encourages, are the bain of today’s politics.
I’ll take motive, true motive, every time. It explains why Reagan, of all our recent Presidents, rose to one of the top echelon of presidents and may well remain there.
6. STUDY HISTORY! STUDY HISTORY! STUDY HISTORY!
The great broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow once introduced a volume of Winston Churchill’s recorded speeches by saying: "The voice you are about to hear is that of the only man who ever prophesized history, made history and recorded history."
Here’s what Churchill himself said: "The farther back you can look, the farther forward you can see."
7. DO SOMETHING EXCITING IN YOUR TWENTIES
Churchill would not have been Churchill had he not gotten out there in his youth, seen the world, proven himself, earned stories to tell.
8. PAY YOUR OWN WAY
Churchill used the money he made writing about the first world war to buy his beloved Chartwell. He lived the life of an aristocrat, never, ever, venturing into a kitchen or traveling, even to war, without a valet. But he paid for his extravagances himself, supporting his taste for luxury with his verbal eloquence. He made his living, as he put it, by his "pen" and by his "tongue."
9. NEVER QUIT!
I’m impressed by the number of elections Churchill lost. There was that first time he ran for Parliament - 1899 - before he headed to South Africa. He lost again when he joined the Liberal government in 1908 and had to face a special election. The party had to find him another district where he could win. He lost three times in the 1920s.
After some surgery at that time, he said he found himself "without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix." He and his party got killed in 1945.
He lost a half a dozen elections in his life, but had nothing but contempt for those who loved the word "democracy" but rejected free elections.
"Democracy is not some harlot in the street to be picked up by some man with a Tommy gun," he said. "Democracy is based on reason, a sense of fair play, and freedom and a respect for other people."
Finally - -
10. BE PREPARED TO STAND ALONE
"Solitary trees," this great man would say of his early lonely youth, "if they grow at all, grow strong."
"Of course," Churchill said matter-of-factly to the British cabinet on May 28, 1940, that day when all seemed lost and Hitler had all the marbles, "whatever happens in Dunkirk, we shall fight on."
He said that when some respectable people in Britain would have cut a deal and let Hitler rule much of Europe."
What gave Churchill the stuff for that?
… He is something of a sportsman; who prides himself on being practical rather than a dandy; he is ambitious; he means to get on, and he loves his country. But he can hardly be the slave of any party.’
Got that right!
When the Conservatives turned sharply protectionist, Churchill didn’t hesitate to quit the party and join the free-trader Liberals. 20 years later, with Socialism on the rise, he switched back. Anyone can "rat" he said, it takes someone special to "re-rat."
This independent streak showed itself earlier, way back when he was at Harrow.