THE LATE Susan Weiner, who died unexpectedly Saturday at the too-young age of 66, made history when she became Savannah’s first female mayor about 20 years ago.
But how she won — and how she helped transformed Georgia politics later in her life — are also part of her legacy.
Ms. Weiner, who moved to Savannah in 1985 to start a management consultant firm, was the ultimate underdog and outsider in a town where most political decisions were made in smoke-filled backrooms.
She was from New York (Gasp: A Yankee!) and had no political base. She was Jewish (not a deal-breaker, as City Council had Jewish members, but an obstacle nonetheless). She was a woman (again, not fatal, but the old-boy network was much in vogue).
But her biggest anchor may have been that “R” word around her neck: Republican.
Savannah was — and is — a city where Democrats have consistently ruled the political roost. Yet in the boisterous and bare-knuckled city election of 1991, the Republican rookie from north of the Mason-Dixon line knocked off Democratic “Mayor for life” John P. Rousakis.
Public concerns about violent crime and a perceived do-nothing attitude by City Hall played roles in her victory. So did the desire for change — even among residents who traditionally voted Democratic.
Especially critical was the role of some politically active and influential African-American ministers, like the Rev. Bennie Mitchell. He preached that Savannah’s black voters, who traditionally voted Democratic by huge margins, could vote Republican and not be considered disloyal or ungrateful. That hasn’t happened since then.
Still, Ms. Weiner’s ouster of the man who ran the Rousakis machine was stunning. She deserves credit for being a fearless campaigner and effective speaker. It’s no coincidence that the prevailing political winds, which were still Democratic, caused the city to switch to nonpartisan elections in 1995. Then, there would be no more GOP surprises.
But Ms. Weiner had trouble being a force at City Hall. Under Savannah’s weak mayor system of government, it takes five votes on the nine-member council to get anything done. During the years that she served, 1992 through 1995, should could reliably count on just one or two Republican votes to support her policies. Democrats who had the majority on council kept her boxed in.
She didn’t help her cause by trying to force out then-City Manager Don Mendonsa. Her husband, the late Al Weiner, occasionally landed her in hot water with some of his acid-tongued remarks.
Yet many voters liked her swashbuckling style. She came within a few hundred votes of winning a second term in the hard-fought mayor’s race in 1995. But then-Alderman Floyd Adams Jr. won a tight contest and made history himself, becoming Savannah’s first African-American mayor.
Ms. Weiner didn’t lose the political bug. If anything, she tried to make it catching among younger Republicans.
In 1996, she was named executive director of a Republican booster group created by then-U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell. Three years later, she moved to north Georgia to continue her work with the Coverdell Leadership Institute. An estimated 300-plus people participated in the institute — including Savannah’s Eric Johnson, who went on to become the GOP’s point man in the Senate. Thus the woman who grew up in Albany, N.Y., probably had a bigger impact on politics in Georgia as a whole, which is now solidly red, than in Savannah.
In 2004, then-Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed her executive director at the Governor’s Council for the Arts, where she served until 2011. For Ms. Weiner, a former actress for 15 years, it was a natural fit.
Her sudden death Saturday following carotid surgery is sad. While she no longer called Savannah home, she’s still remembered here. So will her place in the city’s history book.