Commentary: From Wasilla to Washington, Why Being Mayor of a Mid-sized City Matters.

On August, 29, 2008, Sarah Palin made history as the first woman selected as the Republican vice presidential nominee. Within hours of her selection, the Obama campaign criticized the choice. Not for being too conservative. Not for being out of touch with voters. Rather, Team Obama criticized her for having been the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” read the first sentence of the Obama press release. Of course, McCain didn’t put her a “heartbeat away from the presidency;” only the election can do that. And the press release conveniently left out her service as governor of Alaska.

But the most striking element of the release is that it led by criticizing Palin for having served as mayor of Wasilla. In politics, campaigns will typically begin a talking points memo or a press release with what they believe to be their strongest argument. Thus, the Obama campaign clearly believed their best attack against Palin was that she had been mayor of Wasilla.

They should have reconsidered.

The 2007 Census estimate puts Wasilla’s population at 9780. This makes it just shy of the Center for Building Community’s definition of a mid-sized city—between 10,000 and 100,000.

The mid-sized city is important because it represents a very different culture and climate than those found in big cities or small towns. Whereas big cities have huge bureaucracies and small towns often run themselves, five-figure cities are big enough to require real leadership but small enough to still be manageable. The mayor of a mid-sized city frequently has a small staff and has to learn and manage the issues himself (or herself). In other words, the mayor of a mid-sized city gets real on-the-job training in the myriad of issues confronting the people.

So what did Sarah Palin experience as mayor of Wasilla?

According to the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce, the city has a diverse, service-based economy with a good deal of banking, insurance and medical facilities located in the town, as well as agriculture and manufacturing interests. And since Alaska is a vast state, air transportation is also an important feature of the local economy.

What does this say about Sarah Palin? It says that during her six years as mayor she had hands on experience with the service economy, the manufacturing economy, agriculture and transportation. This is not a bad skill set for a leader to possess as America addresses economic competitiveness challenges in the global economy.

But just interacting with these economic conditions only reveals so much. How successfully did Palin interact with them? How well did she govern?

The record shows that she reduced property taxes and eliminated personal property and business inventory taxes. She improved roads and sewers. She increased funding for the police. She introduced a successful ballot-initiative to build a sports complex. And she even supported an effort to reduce her mayoral salary.

Perhaps most revealingly, a jar sat on Palin’s desk at City Hall. Inside it were the names of Wasilla residents. Once a week, she reached into the jar, pulled out a name and then placed a phone call to the person. "How's the city doing?" she would ask. This is the type of customer service that the mayor of New York City could never offer. But in a mid-sized city, mayors can and do reach out to citizens in the community. In fact, they have to do this in order to keep in touch with the community. After all, it’s not cost-effective to run polls or focus groups in a city of 10,000. And so Palin, like other mid-sized city mayors, had to answer to the people. Evidently, she did so effectively since she was re-elected mayor and then elected as governor. Why do her political opponents find this experience a disqualifier?

Perhaps it’s little wonder that Palin, in her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, referred to Harry Truman. The 33^rd president hailed from Independence, Missouri. This mid-sized city had grown to all of 37,000 by the time its favorite son entered in the White House.

By itself, Governor Palin’s experience as mayor does not make her fit for service in Washington. But it’s not the laughing matter that her opponents say it is either. Perhaps she will have the last laugh on Election Day.