Naheed Nenshi, the mayor of Calgary, and Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J., have a lot in common. For one thing, they鈥檙e likely to be followed on Twitter by people who have never even been to Calgary or New Jersey.
And as both have had occasion to demonstrate, they can hold a city together during a natural disaster. They鈥檒l go where the problems are and stay as long as they鈥檙e needed. It鈥檚 hard to tell when it鈥檚 mere gimmick and when it鈥檚 public service, and whether there is even a difference in their minds. Does it matter? Good communication is good communication.
They were both underdogs in civic politics, now in their 40s, with big grins and big personalities. They speak plainly, but they don鈥檛 talk down to people. They don鈥檛 hide their intelligence, and they expect intelligence in voters.
Being willing to raise an eyebrow now and again doesn鈥檛 seem to hurt their popularity. Nenshi jokes in public about federal politics in a way a less-confident mayor might not. Booker is a mouthy vegetarian, which has got to be at least as risky for a U.S. politician as being an atheist.
This is how they campaign while they govern: They do a good job. They鈥檙e funny. They respect voters enough to act like real human beings, albeit real human beings with an overt political agenda. They appeal to voters鈥� better natures, not their basest fears.
And for this, they are deservedly stars.
But there鈥檚 one big difference between them: Cory Booker is after the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. Nenshi, so far, seems content to stay in municipal politics.
That鈥檚 not for a lack of people calling on him to run at the federal level, or suggesting it would be a natural next step. To take just one of many examples, Maclean鈥檚 magazine noted that because of his competence during Alberta鈥檚 horrifying floods, Nenshi 鈥渉as transformed since last Thursday from a competent local pol to a national phenomenon 鈥� the sort of leader you could easily picture on the federal stage.鈥�
Yes. You could. You could picture him bobbing up and down on the backbench, or carefully articulating talking points on talk shows. I hope that wouldn鈥檛 happen, but that鈥檚 the culture he鈥檇 be joining.
Besides, the skills that make a mayor successful don鈥檛 always translate to other orders of government. Take Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, for example.
He doesn鈥檛 have the relaxed charisma of a Nenshi or a Booker, but he does tend to win most of his fights. One of the skills that has served him well in local politics is his famous ability to remember names and faces; the database in his mind must be vast. Another ability is his willingness to show his face at every strawberry social and ribbon-cutting. Both skills make people feel respected and important.
Those skills don鈥檛 translate as well in other kinds of government. When Watson went to Queen鈥檚 Park, he did well enough, but he faded into the noise of provincial politics. Voters in Barrie or Peterborough don鈥檛 care whether the minister for health promotion is likely to remember their names, if he ever makes it out to a clinic opening.
That鈥檚 not to say that constituency-level work can鈥檛 be put to work in provincial and federal politics. Jason Kenney, the minister of citizenship and immigration, uses the same sorts of gladhanding skills as successful mayors do, to show immigrant communities that he鈥檚 listening, he鈥檚 working hard and he cares. That鈥檚 not applicable to every portfolio, though, and not everyone is as skilled as Kenney has been in carving out a bailiwick.
Maybe we should stop speculating about whether Nenshi will run federally, and just let him be a good mayor. Good mayors are important, especially when disaster strikes. And as Canada has amply demonstrated of late, good mayors can be hard to find.
