Martin O’Malley

altimore Mayor Martin O'Malley is talking about the burning of Washington. After the British laid waste to the nation's capital during the War of 1812, they headed for Baltimore. But the city had prepared for the enemy, and defeated them in one of the war's most famous battles. "We didn't run, we didn't surrender. We did it ourselves," O'Malley says with his trademark frankness.

Now O'Malley, 41, is determined to ensure that Baltimore is prepared for 21st-century threats. The former prosecutor, who was elected mayor in 1999, has been aggressive about ramping up security in his city. He's established an intelligence network in the police department, fought for first-responder equipment and training, conducted ongoing simulations of bioattacks, and set hazmat standards for the city and the chemical industry.

As co-chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' homeland-security task force, O'Malley has emerged as a strong advocate for urban mayors-and Democrats-who've criticized Washington for sending homeland-security funds to the states to distribute to localities. But O'Malley also believes that localities must be active, calling it "a challenge to get people focused here on what we could do, instead of obsessing on what we can't." O'Malley counts Democratic senators such as New York's Hillary Rodham Clinton among his allies on Capitol Hill, but the first name out of his mouth is that of a Republican-Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

O'Malley is a Washington native, who graduated from Catholic University and the University of Maryland. David Wallace, mayor of Sugar Land, Texas, and Republican co-chair of the mayors' homeland-security task force, says: "Obviously he speaks a Demo-cratic message, no question about that. But I do think, in his heart, Marty is deeply concerned about this nation and wants to make sure the decisions we make as a unified body as the U.S. Conference of Mayors are in the best interests of our nation."