Commentary: Why neophyte mayors need steady hands on the wheel

Public school teachers and state lawmakers fill important roles in a civil society, but those jobs hardly prepare their occupants for the daunting challenges and complexities of running a big city with millions of residents, tens of thousands of public employees and multibillion-dollar budgets.

That sobering reality helps explain why Brandon Johnson, a relatively unknown teacher who broke out of a large pack to win Chicago’s 2023 mayor’s race, has stumbled badly enough in two-plus rocky years atop the City Hall food chain to tank in recent polls.

And it’s a cautionary tale that certainly can’t be lost on wunderkind Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old New York state assemblyman who is favored to become New York City’s next mayor.

Mamdani won the Democratic nomination on a wave of youthful energy, grassroots excitement, social media savvy and the same kinds of progressive promises Johnson made during his campaign.

But Mamdani has a chance to avoid many of the pitfalls that have bedeviled Johnson by choosing and co-existing comfortably with at least one veteran of NYC government to help him navigate the turbulent waters of Big Apple politics.

This is crucial because leading a movement is world’s apart from running a sprawling big city government. It’s one thing to rail against the system from the outside and another to manage it from the inside.

Mamdani may have idealism, charisma and social media followers, but he needs someone who understands city budgets, contracts, union negotiations, how bond markets react to fiscal instability and why slogans don’t pave roads or staff homeless shelters.

Johnson, to his credit, tapped Rich Guidice, a veteran of the Richard M. Daley administration, to be his first chief of staff. But that inconvenient marriage lasted only a few months, and none of Guidice’s successors or Johnson’s other top aides have been able to help him avoid two-plus years of unaffordable promises unkept, divisive City Council battles waged and media relations unnecessarily made fraught.

Mamdani, apparently cognizant of the perils of inexperience, has forged a somewhat surprising political alliance and personal friendship with a former competitor-turned-ally in the mayor’s race: city comptroller and former Brooklyn Councilman Brad Lander, and that could make all the difference.

If Mamdani wins the general election in November, he would be smart to ask Lander to serve as his deputy mayor, NYC’s equivalent of a chief of staff, to run the city’s day-to-day operations while Mamdani focuses on the big picture.

Lander has spent decades watching NYC’s political theater play out from the front row. He’s seen and participated in enough real-world policymaking to know that ideology needs structure — not just passion.

As comptroller, he’s no fiscal hawk, but he knows how to balance ambition with arithmetic, not smoke and mirrors. If he were to become deputy mayor, he would occupy the perfect power post to help translate Mamdani’s passion and energy into sustainable and actionable governance.

This is where the comparison with Johnson becomes instructive and sobering. Johnson was also a movement candidate, propelled into office by energized unions, frustrated progressives, and backlash from decades of police intemperance and economic inequality. But once he got the keys to City Hall’s fifth floor, he couldn’t keep a seasoned driver.

After Guidice left a few months into the new administration, Johnson surrounded himself with loyal progressives — teachers, organizers and activists — who lacked valuable management experience. Admirable idealism? Maybe. Wise politics? Absolutely not.

Chicago’s finances remain wobbly. Public safety is still a top concern, the schools face a fiscal cliff, the transit system is hemorrhaging riders and credibility, and the shortage of affordable housing has reached crisis proportions.

Johnson isn’t a bad guy — he’s smart and articulate, and he genuinely believes in his mission — but he was, at least initially, clearly in over his head. And without a seasoned deputy like a Lander or a Guidice, or even a former campaign rival with stellar big-city management chops such as Paul Vallas, no one on Johnson’s leadership team has enough experience or stature to keep him on task and message.

Competence trumps charisma. A city is not a college campus where you can endlessly debate systems of oppression. It’s a living organism that needs to be fed, housed, policed, cleaned and financed. That takes pros. Not poets.

Mamdani seems to understand that. Maybe it’s because he’s watched other progressive leaders get swallowed up by the system or their own inexperience. Maybe it’s because he listens to the quiet voices that tell him values and vision aren’t enough. Or maybe he’s just smart enough to know what he doesn’t know. That’s leadership.

It doesn’t mean a Mamdani administration would avoid every pitfall. Big cities are hard to run, even for seasoned leaders. Every decision will anger someone. Every budget line item has a built-in opposition group. Every stumble would be amplified by right-wing media eager to paint him as “another woke disaster.”

But unlike Johnson, Mamdani would be giving himself a fighting chance if he elevates and keeps someone who knows where the wires are buried. Lander isn’t flashy, and he doesn’t inspire rally chants. But he understands the machinery of government in a way activists rarely do.

Lander is the kind of steady hand Johnson hired but couldn’t hold on to. Mamdani might be a progressive determined not to let his agenda die under a pile of rookie mistakes and fiscal naiveté.

Maybe there’s a lesson here for the next wave of liberal mayors and the movements that support them: Passion helps get you elected, but experience and competence enable you to do the job well. And if you’re smart, you make room for both.

Johnson has 19 months until the next Chicago election, and if he has even a slim chance of righting the ship and changing the narrative enough to be a viable candidate — something predecessor Lori Lightfoot was unable to do — he would be wise to quickly find and hire a Lander-type clone here in Chicago.

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Andy Shaw is a semiretired Chicago journalist and good government watchdog.

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