Conscientiousness is what you need in order to finish what you start, when what you started is something that somebody else told you to do.

I really, really wish this were true. At some point in the process of doing your own things you are going to have to do work. Mundane details, repetition, parts of the process you don't like. For example, you have to write up findings, crunch numbers, prepare details of any experiments you may be doing, double check stuff for reliability and proofread.

As for political savvy -- that isn't required at all. Unless by "research" you mean "political success in the human occupation customarily but misleadingly labeled 'research'."

Not true. Political savvy makes a huge difference to your actual ability to produce research output.

• Without political savvy, for example, I would never have been able to make use of the supercomputer that I needed for my research, or to get the grant money to keep me funded while doing it. (Most of that savvy was, of course, possessed by my Professor, mine was limited to building the connection needed to make him give me the role.)
• From what I understand the material requirements are even more difficult to handle in other fields such as experimental physics or anything requiring actual human (or animal) test subjects.
• It is also needed to keep others from outright interfering with what you are trying to do (I've run into problems there).
• Without political support you aren't able to do the research that you want to do. You are more likely to need to adapt and research the interests of others. This interferes with the conscientiousness bonus for working on personal projects.
• If you can't get others to support what you are doing you need to support yourself doing other things that others want you to do (ie. get a job.) That slows down your research.
• Minions. Having those means you can be doing a lot more of the core research while others handle mundane tasks.

I don't like it, but politics really does improve your ability to do research---and just about anything else.