Two 2016 Candidates Shaped by Lessons Learned as Mayors.

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Running a city requires pragmatism, the ability to forge coalitions across the political spectrum and a willingness to move away from ideology -- all of which Barber says are "totally contrary" to running a modern presidential campaign.

"You might say that were a mayor to be able to bring the climate of problem solving to Washington, that would be a good thing. But the question would be: Is it actually possible in a highly divided, polarized national polity?" Barber said. . .

However, in interviews with NBC News both campaigns stressed the strong suits of municipal governance --- and their candidates' own successes in that arena.

"People actually feel a lot better, for the most part, about how their cities are managed and the ability of their cities to become much more personally responsive to the concerns of people and more performance measured," O'Malley told NBC News in an interview back in July. "And that's what I think they're yearning for in their state governments and in their federal governments."

Steve Kearney, the director of policy and communications in O'Malley mayoral office, said it's difficult to overstate the challenges Baltimore faced when his former boss assumed office in 1999. Kearney said O'Malley helped restore a sense of optimism in the city, citing the mayor's efforts to tackle crime and track the provision of city services with cutting edge data analytics, as well as expand development initiatives to struggling neighborhoods.

However, the former Baltimore mayor has recently faced criticism for the zero-tolerance crime policy he promoted during his tenure, particularly amid an increasingly prominent national discussion surrounding police brutality.

"He absolutely has to talk through his record, and the issues as they stand today, almost a decade since he left the mayor's office," Kearney said. "And I would say, given his background, he's in a much better position to do so than the others who are in the race."

O'Malley and his supporters say the strategy — which stepped up enforcement of minor infractions in an effort to curb overall crime — played a significant role in reducing violent crime. . .

Tom Cochran, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, says O'Malley's policies were in line with national trends at the time around fighting crime — and said O'Malley should make sure to point that out.

"There's certainly no question that during this period the national mood was to lock a lot of people up, to get them off the streets and reduce crime," he said. "You look back 15 years ago and say, 'What did we do wrong?' Well, we got crime down. We also incarcerated a lot of people."

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/two-2016-candidates-shaped-lessons-learned-mayors-n432361