My one piece of advice for idealistic, smart young people getting into politics: if there's some policy or strategy that you just thought of or read about, and it seems completely great and beneficial and simple and easy to implement, but it hasn't been done, then there is almost definitely a reason for that, and that reason is rarely that the people who do this professionally are complete idiots.
That goes for other stuff too, but doubly in politics. It's really common to feel as if you've stumbled upon some fantastic low-hanging fruit, but it's nearly always more complicated. There's some risk or downside you haven't considered, some legal or institutional roadblock, a problem with the political side (a lack of support or underlying conflict). Someone has thought of this already, and they have tried, and it didn't come off. The more interesting, informing, and useful question is going to be "why didn't this happen?" rather than "how stupid are they not to have my insights?"
Not that politicians are always right, but they are professionals and tend not to pass on achieving their agenda at little or no cost.
