Do you feel bad for Kwame Kilpatrick? Could he have gone national?

[Fuzzy Bear]

Kilpatrick could never have gone national.  To be the Black Mayor of Detroit, an overwhelmingly Black city that, fairly or not, is perceived as a city that failed as its white population fled, requires taking political positions and engaging in political rhetoric that will be beneficial at home, but will provide, however unfairly, soundbite fodder for your opponent in an election where you have to face a more diverse electorate. 

Cory Booker was sort of in that situation, but Newark isn't Detroit; it's a city WITHIN the NYC Metro Area, and not THE City that defines the Metro Area.  Booker, as Newark Mayor, wasn't the pivotal figure on local news media the way Bloomberg and DeBlasio were, whereas the Mayor of Detroit is the key local figure featured on Metro Detroit TV.  Booker was also perceived as a Mayor who cleaned up the mess left by his predecessor, Sharpe James.  Kilpatrick, even if he hadn't been corrupt, was on a city that was, inevitably, spiraling downward, economically.  I believe that Detroit's bankruptcy was something that could not have been forestalled by anything short of the state of Michigan dissolving the city and assuming all of its debt.