My personal pick for President of the United States is Elizabeth Warren.

If you are passionately for a different candidate, good for you. I don’t intend to bash your preference or your reasons why. Rather, I’m writing this for anybody who might still be on the fence. Because I’m convinced that Elizabeth Warren would make a great president.

My support for Warren is personal, but it is grounded in the experience of being an elected official. I am Deputy Mayor in a small city whose elections are nonpartisan. We are situated in a red county in a blue congressional district in a purple state. Every day I work on matters of policy without reference to party politics. That’s my public trust, to promote the interests of my city and its citizens above all else. I’m not swimming in political aspirations, and mainly just serving residents of Asbury Park for as long as they’ll have me. Policy is always at the center of how I think about things and how I talk to others. In Elizabeth Warren’s attention to plans and their details, I see a person who has thought things out and could also get them done.

The Democratic candidates have differences, some large and some small, about how to solve specific problems. But the biggest difference I see among them is the ability to turn ideas into deeds, as Elizabeth Warren did when she campaigned for and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Working with allies in both parties she advanced it from a rough idea in 2007 to an actual federal agency in 2010. She can turn vision into reality.

Specific policy is what government is all about. From short term rentals to bike lanes to affordable housing, I have learned a great deal about this process on a local level, and continue to learn. First you lay out a plan based on facts and experience, then you take feedback with a willingness to tweak the plan. To be effective you have to get a wide range of concerns represented, not just a specific political base, left or right or some special interest.

I vote nationally the same way I vote locally: 1) Who seems like a decent person?; 2) Who supports some of the polices I do? (obviously you can’t expect all); and 3) Who can actually get these polices accomplished?

Based on my personal experience of how hard it is to get things done, Elizabeth Warren is the one who can get things done.