Americans are understandably fed up with their leaders right now, but Margaret Carlson at Bloomberg thinks there's "still a class of politician that deserves our admiration: the country’s mayors, who actually run services as opposed to running their mouths." Carlson attended a confab of these mayors and found they had something in common: a "spirit of pragmatism" that "makes party affiliation secondary." From self-described "anarcho-Tory" Boris Johnson of London to Lexington's openly gay Democrat Jim Gray, mayors share a need to keep their cities functioning.
"Not having to deliver anything as visible as trash pickup" is what's allowing John Boehner to shutter the government. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu would never say to Bobby Jindal, "give all your money to New Orleans or I am going to cut off your arm with a dull buzz saw"—which is about as reasonable as Boehner's ObamaCare demands—because "Landrieu can't afford a one-armed governor who hates him." He's being judged on how well his city works, not his antagonism of his political foes. "The closer you are to having to actually do something, the less you can indulge in ideological extremes." Click for her full column. (More mayors stories.)
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