Tom Barrett might be the nicest mayor in the country. Is he a good leader? Is he a visionary for the city? Opinions on those questions will vary. But, agree or disagree with his politics, the fact that he’s a good guy is rarely in dispute, except perhaps from the likes of Milwaukee County’s former Sheriff David Clarke, and we’ll just set that aside for now. Barrett, recently re-elected to his fifth term as Milwaukee’s mayor, comes from a legacy of service. His father was a World War II veteran, awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for navigating 30 missions over Germany. Barrett paid for his own legal education working on a Harley-Davidson assembly line and went on to practice law and work at the FDIC before launching his first election bid. He served in the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate, and ran for governor in 2010 and 2012. In 2009, Barrett famously rescued a grandmother and 1-year-old girl from a pipe-wielding man at State Fair Park, landing himself in the hospital with injuries and a great, political war story. That gutsy and paternal side of our mayor, a father of four, by the way, has resurfaced in these coronavirus days. It was not so long ago, before his briefings about the health crisis, that Barrett loved to talk about how there would be more journalists in our city during the DNC than in the history of Milwaukee before then. Here’s what he had to say about democracy in one of our very first interviews, in those seemingly ancient, pre-Covid times.