What We Should Expect From the People Who Govern Us

Campaigns tell us what candidates believe and show us how they compete. Neither necessarily tells us whether they are ready to govern.

A Minneapolis Times series about the character, competence and judgment public leadership requires.

For nearly two decades, I have worked behind the scenes in Minneapolis campaigns, including serving as campaign chair in six successful City Council and mayoral races. I mention that not because winning campaigns makes me an authority on every question of government. It doesn’t. I mention it because the experience taught me how different winning an election can be from governing well after it is over.

Campaigns reveal things worth knowing. They show us what candidates believe, how they communicate and whether they can persuade people. But campaigns also reward certainty, repetition and the ability to turn complicated questions into simple promises. They can make it easy to confuse preparation with performance. I have watched candidates become very good at answering the questions they expected. Governing begins when the questions stop arriving in the order you practiced them. By then, the signs are down. Someone has to decide what can actually be done and live with the consequences.

Consider the scope of the job. Minneapolis city government has a $2 billion budget for 2026 and employs thousands of people. The job can require an elected official to weigh a large contract, a zoning appeal or whether a city service is working. City government reaches residents through public safety, housing, streets, water, permits and scores of less visible services. When one of them fails, people notice. These responsibilities warrant standards at least as demanding as those used when hiring leaders of substantial organizations.

No responsible board would choose an executive simply because the applicant agreed with its members on every important question. Board members would study the person’s record. They would ask about the people and budgets the applicant had managed, the difficult decisions that had been made and what happened afterward. They would pay attention to how the applicant handled disagreement and whether mistakes were owned. Voters should be at least as careful.

Government is not a business, of course. Its purpose is not to make a profit, and residents are not customers who can simply take their business elsewhere. Elected officials must represent people with different needs and beliefs. They work in public, within the law and through democratic institutions that are often deliberately slow. The consequences are also deeply personal. A failed business plan can cost money. A failed public policy can cost someone a home, a livelihood, a sense of safety or faith in government itself. That makes the standard for public leadership more demanding, not less.

Values still matter. We should know what candidates believe, whose interests they intend to serve and what kind of city they hope to build. But agreement can become a shortcut. A familiar endorsement, the right slogan or a well-delivered answer may tell us that a candidate is on our side. It does not tell us whether that person can do the job. Agreeing with a candidate tells us something important. It doesn’t tell us everything we need to know.

That fuller judgment begins with character, which means more than avoiding scandal. Character shows up when the facts are inconvenient, when treating someone decently offers no political advantage and when pressure comes from friends rather than opponents. An official should apply the same standards to allies and adversaries. Public office is a trust, not a prize awarded to a movement, a party or an individual.

But character cannot carry the job by itself. Good intentions cannot substitute for understanding how the city works. An effective official has to learn the limits of the office, read a budget, ask useful questions of staff and understand enough about contracts and law to recognize problems. Announcing a policy and making it work are two different jobs. The second one is often unglamorous. It requires preparation, follow-through and enough respect for detail to notice when a promising idea is producing the wrong result.

Even capable, decent people can exercise poor judgment. City leaders rarely choose between a perfect option and a terrible one. More often, they are working with incomplete information while legitimate interests pull in different directions. Sometimes the right answer is compromise. Sometimes it is holding the line. The hard part is knowing which moment you are in. It also takes courage to tell your own side no. That is not betrayal. Sometimes it is the clearest proof that an elected official understands who the job is for.

What happens afterward tells us something too. Intentions matter, but outcomes matter. Leaders should be able to say what they tried, whether it worked and what they will change. No one expects public officials to be infallible. But when a decision goes badly, we should hear more than an explanation of why someone else caused it. A leader who cannot own a decision cannot be trusted to improve it.

Elections, of course, are not corporate job interviews. Public office is not reserved for people with impressive titles, long résumés or conventional credentials. Our city is stronger when people with different backgrounds and life experiences step forward to serve. Competence also cannot redeem values or policies that voters believe are harmful. Experience can produce wisdom, but it can produce complacency too. The point is not to create a narrow credential test. It is to look for evidence that a candidate’s values are matched by the ability and temperament to turn them into responsible government.

This does not shut out new leaders. Someone does not need to have held office before to show character, competence, judgment and accountability. Those qualities can be demonstrated at work, in a neighborhood, through public service or by solving a problem others had accepted as permanent. Look at what the candidate has actually done and what happened next. Campaign promises tell us what someone hopes to do. A record shows how that person behaves when real people and real consequences are involved.

We will never find a flawless candidate, and we should be wary of anyone who claims to be one. But we can expect more than ideological agreement and campaign skill. Has the candidate prepared for the responsibilities of office? Does this person understand the difference between advocacy and governing? Can the candidate work through disagreement without surrendering principle? Will the candidate answer to the whole city rather than only to the people who helped win the election?

Minneapolis deserves leaders who can match conviction with judgment and promises with results. We should look beyond the campaign and ask who is ready to carry the weight of the office after Election Day.

Winning an election gives someone the office. It doesn’t prove they are ready for the work.

Download a reprint of this article