A test of leadership

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Times like these are a test of leadership. And while President Donald Trump has descended to new lows, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has stood out for her strength, candor and common sense. 

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden had already committed to picking a woman as his running mate and he was getting increasing pressure to choose a black woman even before the killing of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer. That will only intensify now. He has a number of options, but probably the best is Bottoms. 

For one thing she is the popular mayor of Atlanta and Georgia is just barely in play for the Democrats. If she can help him win the state then Biden will almost certainly win the election because any Democrat who can take conservative Georgia is going to have also won more moderate states like Wisconsin. 

Second, Bottoms is probably more prepared to become president should anything happen to Biden than many of the other choices. Stacey Abrams is also from Georgia but she has never served in an office higher than state legislator. Sen. Kamala Harris has been a prosecutor (with a record that won’t help her in this environment) and a U.S. senator. As I’ve written before, senators pontificate and put out press releases, but they don’t have to actually do much governing. 

But there’s no better preparation for being president than having been a mayor. And if I thought that was true for former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, I believe it even more fervently when it comes to Bottoms, who governs a city of a half million people that is the center of the ninth largest metro area in the country. 

Moreover, Bottoms was a rising star even before the current outbreak of protest and unrest. She had been a steady and forceful leader during the COVID-19 pandemic, frequently appearing on national news shows to take on the Trump administration’s weak and confusing response to the crisis. 

Now, in response to unrest in Atlanta, she has been equally forceful, telling those responsible for the violence that they are hurting the cause. Unlike Trump, she can talk about law and order without the obvious racial overtones. She has four children, including an 18-year-old son. When she talks about the “real pain” that the George Floyd killing has aroused for her and her family, it’s not just a talking point. In short, she has credibility on the two most serious issues of the day — the pandemic and race — at a time when credibility is in very short supply, even for the obviously empathetic Biden. 

It doesn’t hurt that, at only 50 years old, she presents a youthful contrast to the 77-year-old Biden or that she endorsed Biden early on and stuck with him even as his campaign got off to a rocky start, and even after he took criticism from Harris for having once opposed forced school busing. 

I still have my worries about Biden, but it seems all but certain now that he will represent the only chance we have to defeat the worst U.S. president in modern history. And, if that’s the case, then he needs to do everything he can to win. 

It’s true that a running mate seldom delivers an election to a presidential candidate, but there are exceptions. Lyndon Johnson probably pulled JFK across the line in 1960. Another southern politician, Keisha Lance Bottoms, might just do the same for another northeastern liberal, Joe Biden, in 2020.