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M ajor dailies don’t run guest columns on their op-ed pages by just anybody—especially newspapers like The Boston Globe, which is read by the best-educated people in the nation’s most intellectual city.

But then, Bob Mann isn’t just anybody. Besides being a good writer with keen insights, he has the kind of experience money can’t buy. He spent 19 years on Capitol Hill working as the mouthpiece for two of the most talented communicators and negotiators in the history of the modern Senate, Russell Long and John Breaux, then took on the challenge of directing communications for Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

During Katrina, no less.

“I made mistakes,” says Mann, who is refreshingly candid in explaining how a guy with his credentials could have been at the helm of the governor’s disastrous communications efforts during the hurricane and flood. “I was not fully aware of how she was coming across to the public at the time, and we overexposed her and let her go out there more than she should.”

This is what makes Mann so good. He’s not self-deluding and doesn’t fall prey to the dangerous trap of believing his own rhetoric.

“There’s no extraneous BS with Bob,” says a former colleague from the Blanco administration who notes that Mann tried to save the governor from herself during the Katrina crisis, but was overruled by others in the administration. “Keep the spin to the minimum because you’ve got the facts on your side.”

Mann doesn’t attempt to pass the buck. He owns up to what he maintains is his share of the responsibility. But he does confess that after 20-plus years in politics, he’s cynical about the political arena.

“I have gotten jaded,” says Mann, who besides writing editorials is a chaired professor at LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication. “Politics is a con game, and if you don’t reconcile yourself to the fact that it’s theater—and a lot of it is acting—then you shouldn’t get into this business.”

Mann arrived at conclusions like that gradually, over the course of his busy career. Like so many others, he started out really believing in those he worked for, believing they would make a difference. During nearly two decades in Washington he came to realize that while talented people can achieve good things, the real way to get things done is to manipulate the system.

For Mann, the epiphany came one night in the late 1980s, when he accompanied Breaux to a taping of CNN’s Crossfire. While Breaux was in the makeup chair, host Michael Kinsley walked up to the senator to discuss the rundown for the show.

“I remember Kinsley telling Breaux that his ‘role’ was to go after the other side as hard has could,” Mann recalls. “And the role thing really hit me: This was pure theater.”

While that experience opened Mann’s eyes to the realities of political communications, it didn’t sour him on the profession. It only made him wiser, and over the years he continued to learn.

It didn’t hurt that his boss was among the best. Breaux could deliver sound bites on cue, even if his mind was a million miles away. He had the right inflection, the right tempo and was almost completely convincing most of the time, not that he didn’t work hard at it. In the early days of his career, Breaux devoted a lot of time to media training, which Mann believes is one of the reasons he was so successful.

“The best politicians understand the importance of rhetoric and devote the time necessary to honing that craft,” he says. “Anyone who spends a lot of time in the public eye—they need to spend time doing media training.”

When Mann took over as Blanco’s communications director, it was a whole different ballgame. Unlike Breaux, the state’s first female governor seemed uncomfortable and agitated behind the mic. She needed polish and practice. Mann had his work cut out for him. About the time he was starting to make inroads—you could really see improvements in the governor’s public performances—Katrina hit.

In the days following the storm, the governor took it on the chin. The national media derided her for looking unprepared and inept. Local opinion polls predicted the demise of her political career. That’s why when she announced in mid-March that she wouldn’t seek re-election, it was not such a shock.

“If I had to do it over again, I think the thing I learned about managing a crisis is not to overexpose yourself,” Mann said.

Those who worked with Mann in those days say it’s not fair to blame him. They describe him as a fair, insightful boss with a low-key boyish demeanor that belies a shrewd operator underneath.

“He’s a wonderful, clean cut guy,” says Chris Frink, whom Mann hired away from The Advocate to pen Blanco’s speeches. “But you don’t screw with him because he will come at you, but with a solid foundation in the facts.”

Denise Bottcher, who worked under Mann as Blanco’s press secretary, also describes her former boss as a solid, “big-picture” guy.

“He’s just a normal guy but definitely one you would want in your corner at all times,” she says. “There’s no one who can champion a cause better than he.”

These days, Mann has lots of time to reflect on his experiences in the world of politics. At LSU, he teaches political communications to juniors and seniors, and studies the kinds of crisis communication scenarios he lived out during Katrina. And he loves it.

After nearly two decades in a pressure-cooker profession he’s enjoying the slower pace of academia—not that it’s easy. On the contrary, his new job is more intellectually demanding in many ways than his previous career. Not only does he have teaching duties to tend to, but he edits a book series for LSU Press and is writing his own book on war-time dissent from the American Revolution through the present war in Iraq.

But the best part of his new role is the quality of life is much better. That’s important for a husband and father of 7-year-old twins.

“Politics is better suited for younger people or people without children,” he says. “It’s such a demanding life, especially when you’re campaigning, and I was ready for a different lifestyle. Now when I leave my office I don’t take it home with me.”