Daniel Kemmis

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Projects that unfold 'naturally' within a community, of course, require a type of consensus building that's sharply different from political infighting. Kemmis learned a lot about the old politics when, seven years out of Harvard, he entered the Montana legislature in 1975. 'I came in as a fighter, an advocate,' he recalls. 'But the further I went, the more I began to feel that simply forging a majority and pushing an agenda along wasn't the answer.'

In 1984 he took a four-year break from the political whirl, worked on a book called Community and the Politics of Place (1990), and did a lot of thinking. When he was elected mayor in 1990, he was an unabashed consensus builder. 'At one point I supported a bridge across the Clark Fork that the business community wanted and my natural constituency, the environmentalists, saw as clutter. But I believe the long-term, sustainable protection of the environment is best served by building a broad consensus--so no group goes off nursing a grudge.'

Kemmis sees his new politics as just one part of a broad movement across the country and the world. 'Even in the face of violence and decay, I believe a powerful healing is going on,' he says. 'You can see it in the movement toward mediation rather than litigation, in neighborhood organizing, and even in a new willingness here in the West to work out disputes over water rights. It's nothing less than a reclaiming of the human capacity for cooperation.'

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