Is KC ready for a 30-something mayor? There are five candidates under 40
Jason Kander's decision to run for Kansas City mayor has torn the space-time continuum. Pundits and pros are already gauging his chances and those of his opponents.
Candidates are entering and leaving the race with equal speed.
Kander's record will get a needed going-over in the weeks to come. For now, though, let's consider an interesting fact: If elected, Kander, who is 37, would be the youngest Kansas City mayor in living memory.
Yet he isn't the youngest candidate in the field. Quinton Lucas is 33. Jermaine Reed is 34. Of the nine mayoral candidates now on the list, five — Kander, Lucas, Reed, Alissia Canady and Phil Glynn — are under the age of 40.
Henry Lee Jost appears to be the last Kansas City mayor elected in his 30s. He won in 1912.
No candidate for office should be elected solely because of age, of course. It's possible that one of the 40-plus mayoral candidates — Scott Taylor, Scott Wagner, Stephen Miller and Rita Berry — will raise money, run a good campaign and win the office.
But the younger mayoral field says several important things about Kansas City politics.
The under 40 set will bring energy to the race. Look for lots of communication via social media, outside-the-box strategies and far less reliance on the aging institutions of Kansas City politics: civic groups such as the Citizens Association, the Chamber of Commerce, Freedom, Inc., even traditional media.
Endorsements will matter less. Facebook will matter more. Younger candidates will have a better handle on 21st-century get-out-the-vote efforts such as micro-targeting and voter outreach.
Kansas City's emerging young political class is also encouraging on a policy level.
It's easy to forget that today's decisions are about tomorrow. The new airport, for example, will need to be relevant in 2063, not just 2023. Younger candidates often have a better sense of the long-term implications of their policy decisions than their older colleagues.
The Power & Light District is now seen as a catalyst for other improvements downtown. Yet progress has come at a significant cost to the city's treasury and to the opportunity to spend taxpayer money on other essential items decades from now.
Politicians in their 20s and 30s know they'll have to live with the consequences of their decisions for many years. Their colleagues in their 50s and 60s may be less sensitive to long-term costs because someone else will pay the bill.
And remember: Younger Kansas Citians seem much more interested in a vibrant, urban approach to living than older voters, who have long been focused on neighborhoods. Sidewalks may be less important to the young than a bus system that works or downtown streets that are safe at night.
The tension over those issues will be an interesting development to watch, and should be a central focus of the mayoral and council campaigns.
But the youth trend in local politics is highly important for another reason. It's the strongest signal yet that young Kansas Citians are fully engaged in their community, ready to tackle the problems older leaders have not yet solved.
This isn't what many expected. Ten years ago, in the teeth of the coming Great Recession, many thought the city's young adults might turn their backs on politics as irrelevant. Better to work in the private sector, maybe, and change the world that way.
That feeling hasn't gone away entirely. The national government is an impotent joke, and President Donald Trump — a baby boomer, by the way — is a symbol for all that is wrong in contemporary political culture. State government, locked in its own tribal loop, is almost as bad.
Local government is the place to be. And there's room: The activists and political figures who defined the 1990s and 2000s in Kansas City politics are fading away, more or less, creating room for young people with smarts, energy and focus.
A generational change is underway in Kansas City government. We may see it fully develop in 2019, or not. But it is unmistakable — and a welcome change.
This story was originally published June 26, 2018 at 4:53 PM.