Federal Judiciary

The Making of a Mayor -- By: Jay Nordlinger

Friends, there is a very interesting mayor in San Ramon, Calif., some 40 miles east of San Francisco. His name is H. Abram Wilson. I talked to him the other day -- by phone (from New York), not in the Bay Area, alas. Not every American is entitled to perfect weather and beautiful surroundings. You might like to get to know Wilson a little. I thought I would write him up, Impromptus-style: in bulleted bites.

Wilson is running for reelection again -- and he is again running unopposed. Next year, he will run for the state assembly. He ran for the post last year, but lost by four points. Wilson is a Republican, by the way -- and it was a bad year for Republicans all round. In California, the GOP is particularly woeful.

Here is something quite interesting: The mayoralty in San Ramon is nonpartisan. And many of Wilson?s friends and constituents had no idea he was a Republican until he ran for Assembly -- when you have to declare a party.

He says that, when some friends found out about his affiliation, they let loose a stream of expletives. He told them, ?Can?t you see how I?ve governed as mayor? Don?t you know what my principles are?? They would answer, ?Oh, yeah -- fiscal responsibility and all that.? And they would say, ?I?ve never voted for a Republican in my life -- but I?ll vote for you.?

Another thing: Mayor Wilson is black, which some people suppose a Republican cannot be.

A word about San Ramon: It has a population of almost 60,000, and is growing fast. It is an affluent place, pretty conservative. It hosts the headquarters of Chevron, and many other big companies are planted, too.

Wilson estimates that between 75 and 80 percent of adults have a college degree, and that maybe 40 percent have an advanced degree.

He has lived in California for many a year, but he was born in Charleston, S.C. -- that was in 1946. ?My great-great-grandfather was one of the first physicians in South Carolina,? he says. Wilson grew up on Percy Street:  This is where the black upper crust, if you will, lived. ?It was a blessing to live there,? Wilson says.

His parents were educators. And ?we lived in an interesting world.? The family was comfortably off, says Wilson, and they were even ?fortunate enough to have a housekeeper.?

Incidentally, Wilson tells us, ?I grew up knowing that Strom Thurmond had a black daughter.? This is long before the world knew. Wilson?s mother went to Claflin College, in Orangeburg -- same as this daughter. Thurmond would come and visit her. ?So every time he appeared on television, we would think about, or make some remark about, his black daughter.?

Wilson explains that this Thurmond business was part of living in the South: ?On one hand, there was this man on television, ranting against blacks; on the other, there was the man who visited his black daughter, to ensure that she had the best of everything.?

Around the Wilsons? dinner table, there was always talk of politics. The mayor?s mother was a Democrat, his dad a Republican. ?That?s where my brother and I became very, very aware of politics. We had a sense of the importance of voting, and of being politically active.? Above all, ?we learned to treat others the way we ourselves wanted to be treated.?

Wilson?s brother, Robert, is a member of the Springdale, Ohio, city council (and he is a Republican).

Wilson further says that -- hard as it may be to believe now -- it was perfectly normal to be a Republican in the South, back then: perfectly normal if you were black. ?We had several influences on us. We knew you had to have a social conscience. We also knew that you had to hold people accountable.?

When Wilson was a youngster, the family moved to Philadelphia, and lived in ?an integrated area,? he says. He thought something was missing: and he wanted to go to a historically black college.

He went to Central Ohio State University, in Wilberforce -- and he was senior class president.

And San Francisco? Where does that come in? ?I spent my summers in San Francisco. I had an aunt and uncle who lived there. They didn?t have any children. And we came out here, and I loved it. I knew that, after college, I would want to return to San Francisco.?

Wilson was drafted -- this was 1969. And he was inducted into the army at Ft. Bragg, N.C. ?I remember going on the train and seeing a sign: ?Welcome to Klan Country.??

Something remarkable happened when this young man was being processed through: They saw that he was from San Francisco. And they asked whether he was a member of the Black Panthers.

This rock-ribbed conservative Republican was indignant, and he said, ?No. Did you inquire of these other men whether they are members of the Klan??

That got him two weeks of confinement, while authorities investigated whether Wilson, indeed, belonged to the Black Panthers.

After basic training, Wilson was assigned to the medical corps.

Have I mentioned that he was, and is, a singer? ?I can?t remember a time when music was not part of our life. Candy, our housekeeper, would sit me down -- we would lie there, quietly, and listen to the Met broadcast?: the broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera out of New York. ?To me, music was opera. My friends would always kid me about this.? Eventually, Wilson knew music ?from Mozart to Motown.? But ?I?d take a Motown song and make it sound like an aria in a heartbeat.?

In Philadelphia, Wilson studied voice, and he sang all through college. Thereafter, he sang in professional choruses. And his first foray into government was on an arts commission. ?Art and music has guided my life.?

He tells an amazing story: ?When I was in basic training, a good friend I grew up with was getting married. My mother called the general at Ft. Bragg and said, ?My son needs to come home to sing at a wedding.? For some reason, the general wasn?t very impressed.

?So then my mother called a congressman or someone, and that made something happen. I?m out on a 50-mile hike, and a staff car pulls up. I get in and am driven back to see the general. I think something awful has happened -- something to my parents.

?I walk in and the general looks at me and says, ?Sing.? I have no idea what?s going on.

?Anyway, I sang ?Ave Maria? [the Schubert version]. And the general said, ?You can go, but you need to get back here by Sunday.? I said, ?Where am I going?? He said, ?You?re going home -- but make sure you?re back here by Sunday.?

?I knew my mother had done something -- it was all her doing. The general also said, ?Do you have enough money?? My mother had told him to give me money, if I didn?t have enough, and she would send it back.

?At any rate, I sang at the wedding, and I sang in the chapel every Sunday after that.?

Wilson?s career, pre-politics, was in banking. He was a federal funds trader at Wells-Fargo. ?I balanced the bank?s books at the end of the day.? He became a vice president there. Then he left Wells-Fargo and was a principal with Bank of America Securities for many years.

I ask what kind of a Republican he is. He says it can be summed up by ?Ronald Reagan? -- Reaganism. He also says, ?I never changed anyone?s mind by arguing with him. Just give people the facts. Give them the facts, and they?ll figure it out. People are very practical and sensible.?

I ask about models, or heroes, or influences. He says, ?My parents were the biggest influence. We talked about everything. Nothing was off the table. They said, ?You can do anything you want.??

Wilson notes that San Ramon, Calif., is 75 percent white, 20 percent Asian, and less than 2 percent black.

He also says, ?Anwar Sadat influenced my life, because I saw this man come to America as president of Egypt, and I was so in awe because he looked like me.?

Also, ?President Reagan came along.?

Just by the way, I mention to Wilson that, years ago, Lou Gossett Jr. starred in a TV miniseries about Sadat. This series was banned in Egypt -- because the actor portraying the late leader was black. (Sadat?s mother was Sudanese.)

What does Wilson think of President Obama? ?The man himself, I admire for what he?s accomplished. His politics, I differ from quite a bit.?

And what does Wilson think should be done to fix the California GOP? And the national Republicans? His prescription, essentially, is: Stop the infighting and offer practical solutions.

Says Wilson, ?It?s ludicrous,? all the Republican infighting. ?The average person does not care about party politics, whether you?re an R or a D. The average person cares about how you?re going to affect the quality of his life, and the life of the community.?

Wilson is a strong fiscal conservative. ?When I took over San Ramon, we had a structural deficit. Now we?re one of the few cities with over a 50 percent reserve? -- a surplus. ?And that?s what the state should have.?

Also, ?Sunset all programs -- I don?t care what the programs are, sunset them and see whether they?re doing what they?re supposed to be doing, see whether they?re cost-efficient. To me, that?s so important.?

?We formed our own police two years ago? -- up to then, the county was responsible for policing -- ?and they are paid for performance. They are paid when they go out and interact with our community, when they put in something extra.?

I say, ?Is this kind of like merit pay in teaching?? He says, ?Yes. And just like my staff.? The police can make from a 3 percent raise to an 8 percent raise -- ?It?s up to you. And the police officers are just ecstatic about that.?

?But what about the union?? I say. There is no union. Wilson says he ?took a lot of static? for a new arrangement in policing, but the static was well worth taking.

A bit on so-called social issues: The mayor is against abortion, except in cases of incest, rape -- ?things like that.? He is also very interested in giving young mothers options.

And the issue of gay marriage? ?Marriage is between a man and a woman. That?s how I was raised, and how I feel. But I?m very, very tolerant of everyone.?

Immigration? ?If you?re here illegally, you have no rights. I have too many friends who are here legally who are being painted with a broad brush. If I go to someone?s home, I respect that home. I don?t enter illegally.?

A bit of philosophy: ?My grandfather used to say, ?If you need a helping hand, grab your own wrist.? Don?t wait for someone else. And never be a victim. Don?t let yourself be taken advantage of. You have to give someone your soul to be a victim. You are in control of your own destiny.? Individuals, and even local and state governments, can ?blaze their own trail.?

Abram Wilson is just a mayor in a modest town, running for the state legislature. But he?s someone to know, I hope you will agree. He speaks gently, even when he?s saying bold-color things. He is thoughtful, earnest. He?s both idealistic and pragmatic. His heart seems to lie with music. He has a strong sense of what an American community should be -- what citizenship should be.

As I hear him, he?s an old-fashioned American -- kind of a Frank Capra American, by way of Percy Street. Fine with me.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on September 15, 2009 (boomark / email).