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No matter what you think of them as far as policy goes, two of those three have ended up being very dominant politicians in their nation and time.

Margaret Thatcher is near the top of most historical rankings of UK PMs in most surveys (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Prime_M...).

It's probably too early to tell whether Merkel is considered "good" or "bad" from a historical perspective, but her term as chancellor has been quite influential, enough for many publications to describe you as "de-facto leader of the EU" (and for Forbes to name Merkel as the 2nd most powerful person in the world in 2015).

Obviously the converse exists, but Thatcher and Merkel seem like good examples for reasonable, well-educated scientists doing "great" in politics.