By David K. Shipler
American
voters have never sent a city mayor directly to the White House. They have
never regarded being mayor as sufficient qualification. It’s OK to be a corrupt
businessman, a mediocre governor, or a senator who hasn’t managed anything more
than his own staff. But to work at gritty levels where ordinary folks meet the
schools, police, and other essential services? To navigate the intricacies of
race? To witness the intimate impact of government callousness or compassion? All
that is deemed irrelevant by the political professionals and the electorate. As
America burns, maybe it’s time for some rethinking.
Some mayors in this crisis have
found the right tone of passionate eloquence to voice the country’s widespread revulsion
at Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. They have touched
the chords of historical outrage over deprivation and oppression. They have mixed
moving pleas for peace with scathing condemnations of those whose violence,
arson, and looting have sullied the noble purpose of the protests.
The fine words have not always
worked. Being mayor is a tough job, and mayors across the country have been
exercising tough love. They’re not all good at it, and ingrained cultures of
both police and citizens impede progress even by the most enlightened. But they’ve
had actual experience at the grass roots, never a bad thing in governing, especially
from the highest post in the land.
That experience has not proved persuasive
to voters. Grover Cleveland was
mayor of Buffalo, but his stepping stone to the presidency was as governor
of New York State. Calvin Coolidge was the small-town mayor of Northampton,
Mass., but before and after that, he served in the state legislature, from
which he was elected vice president; he became president when Warren Harding
died.
