A father's love?

    When Jack Burden and Tiny Duffy first meet Willie Stark at Slade's place, Stark seems to be, what they view as, simply a hopeless "sap."  From his quiet refusal to drink beer (due to his wife's disapproval of it), to Tiny Duffy's exhibition of immense sarcasm and incredulity when Alex Michel declares that Stark is actually involved in "poly-ticks" as the County Treasurer of Mason City, Stark is almost like a "Mr. Goody-two shoes", or as Michel describes him, a "teacher's pet"- a hardworking boy who has not yet been fully exposed to all the deceit, lies, and evils of the world, who simply wants to use virtuous, just methods to achieve good deeds and help those around him- and thus is seen by the others, especially Duffy, as a prey easily fooled and manipulated by the more experienced predators in the game of "poly-ticks."  Yet when Stark finally discovers, in the midst of his diligent hardworking attempts to truly run for governor, that he has been taken as a fool the entire time, that Duffy has been controlling him as a pawn, a "dummy-head", to divide MacMurfee's votes in favor of Harrison, he essentially goes a bit haywire and experiences a complete change in personality (the first signal of this being the bottle of beer he immediately downs initiating his addiction to alcohol and thus change in character).  I suppose one could say that he was forced by this event, by this first extremely personal exposure to the full brunt of ridicule, deception, and manipulation, to adopt a new outlook on the world, in which one has to "dirty his hands" in order to achieve good (where "one's crime may be but a function of one's virtue") and become "ruthless Willie", essentially fulfilling his dictatorial "Boss" persona.

    Now when we meet Willie Stark's son, Tom, in his teenage years, he's the "All-American" football star, the amazing quarterback of his team that's always got his name in the newspapers with people glorifying him left and right as the "Freshman Whiz", the "Sophomore Thunderbolt" (Warren 306)- in essence, he's the exact opposite of the character Willie himself had been in his younger years: the class "bookworm" and "teacher's pet" that Alex Michel had first introduced him as (Warren 21).  Yet, perhaps almost inevitably, because of his local hero status, extreme popularity, and constant lavishing of praise and attention on him, he develops a quite spoiled self-centered attitude and remains blinded in his egocentric universe to the troubles of others.  Thus because Stark does not raise his son in the typical fatherly way of discipling him to have morals and ensuring that he uses just, virtuous methods to achieve his desires, many readers often may believe that Stark seems to simply not care for his son and just wants to use his son's publicity to increase his own popularity and further his own career and success in politics.  Yet the issue with that belief, is the basic problem of perspective and perception.  From many of our own perspectives, as well as Lucy Stark's, Willie is better off raising his own son to be like his former self (an individual that, though regarded as a "bookworm", sticks to his hardworking morals, sense of responsiblity, and belief in using honest methods to achieve his desires) than to raise him to be the complete opposite (an individual that, though admired/glorified by all and provided with everything he wants, has no morals, respect for others, or any sense of responsiblity).  However from Willie's perspective, Willie probably views this latter individual, the complete opposite of his former self, as the more desirable of the two and thus the path that he encourages Tom to embark on, though not with ill will, but with the hope that his son's high level of self-assuredness would enable him to avoid the same mistakes Stark's former self had made in the past as described earlier before his "transformation" (in trusting in Tiny Duffy's lies and allowing himself to be unknowingly used as a dummy, ridiculed as a fool).  In addition, the extreme contrast between the amount of contempt, sarcasm, and disdain with which Duffy had originally looked down on Stark's former self, and the extent of flattery, admiration, and obsequiousness with which he now pays to Tom, only further serves to emphasize to Willie the advantage of continuing to raise his son to fit the latter all-popular personality and thus not be manipulated by the likes of Tiny Duffy.  Thus, because Willie Stark's fatherly perception of what he feels is the best for his son is based greatly upon his own past painful experience with deception and manipulation, though his method of parenting seems rather distorted to us and Lucy Stark, in his own way, he is able to achieve his goal of raising Tom to be completely opposite of his own former self- which is what he feels is best for his son.  As Stark himself passionately says during his son's games: "He's my boy—and there's not any like him—he'll be All American—and Lucy wants me to stop him playing...says it's ruining him—ruining him, hell—he'll be All American..." (Warren 306).