I am not optmistic about the new Mayor though; a basic hostiltiy to private enterprise which I think is pretty much part and parcel of being an oopen socialits will not serve Buffalo well.
Socialists have been elected to the office of mayor in the US in the past and this has generally turned out well for the cities involved. Indeed, one of the USA's best mayors was a socialist. I'm surprised you're not familiar with him, as he's still a prominent political figure today. Here's a quick summary:
In 1981 Bernie Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont. He won that first time by a very small margin, but in each of his 3 re-election campaigns he won by increasingly large margins -- because he did an excellent job and became increasingly popular for it.
As you may know, Vermont used to be an extremely red state. Prior to Sanders' time in office they had fairly consistently voted for Republicans for the house, the senate, and for the presidency. (They had only elected a Democrat to the house once, in 1958, and promptly voted him out in 1960. Patrick Leahy was the first and only Democrat they elected to the senate prior to Sanders mayoralty. And Vermont was one of the only 2 states which did not go for Roosevelt in 1944; prior to Sanders' time in office the only time Vermont had gone for a Democrat was Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide win over Goldwater.)
Since Sanders began holding office -- first as mayor of Vermont's largest city, then as their house member, and then as one of their 2 senators -- Vermont has become increasingly blue, to the point that many people aren't aware of how conservative Vermont was in the past (and remains to some extent in the present). Because of the way he has served Vermont in office Sanders became an extremely popular political figure in Vermont and has remained so during his entire career in office.
Here's a brief account of Sanders' record as mayor from Steven Sofier's 1991 book about Sanders mayorship
The Socialist Mayor.
U.S. News and World Report recently recognized Sanders as "one of the nation's 20 top mayors", acknowledging his role in "Lpreserving affordable housing, keeping property tax increases to a minimum and -- in a state where cities enjoy little autonomy -- sparking a statewide push for home rule." In 1988, the U.S. Conference of Mayors named Burlington (and one other city) as the most livable city in the country with a population under 100,000.
If nothing else, Sanders has shown that socialists can govern at least as well, if not better, than Democrats and Republicans...
Can you identify any socialist who has done a poor job after being elected mayor? If so, I'd appreciate seeing some details about this. If not, then it's likely that your opinion is based more on your dislike of socialism than on historical evidence.
