Snow is viewed as a political career-killer in many American cities. Elected officials know they must attack snow removal like an invading army or suffer dire consequences. People who hold the master key to municipal garages where plows and mountains of salt — or chemical de-icers — are stored often have a single shot to get it right. Erstwhile mayors and legions of former council members have learned the hard way. I know several of them.

That doesn’t appear to be the case in the Twin Cities. The storm that blanketed the region early Thursday morning with about a half-foot of snow was met with what I initially considered a disarming indifference. As a fairly recent newcomer to town, I viewed the first storm of the season to be a moderate pre-Christmas blizzard. I was instructed to curb my enthusiasm. I was told that I was actually experiencing a “nuisance snow,” not a true weather event.

Even the official declaration of a snow emergency by the city of Minneapolis seemed casual to me. The emergency went into effect at 12 p.m. Thursday, which was a number of hours after the sky opened and emptied. But there appears to be a studied method to the way Minneapolis responds to snow. It’s different from the worried — and hurried — responses in other places I’ve experienced in the Midwest. From what I can tell after one snowfall, the Minneapolis approach seems to work, at least well enough.

Even now, as I look out my front window at a street covered in snow, traced with glistening road slicks created by countless tire tracks, people are out jogging, some with dogs. One guy just raced by in a pair of shorts. Cars appear to be traveling at the posted speeds. I’m already starting to rethink my approach to winter and what should be considered inclement conditions.

Shortly after I arrived in town this past summer, I met R.T. Rybak for breakfast to learn more about my new hometown. The former Minneapolis mayor offered a highly useful and historically rich conversation. Because we met in August, the one thing that didn’t come up was snow — even though I’ve noticed a pattern where some Minnesotans get a gleam in their eye when they realize someone has yet to experience a local winter.

In his autobiography, “Pothole Confidential: My Life as Mayor of Minneapolis,” Rybak makes a brief mention of snow and its potential political peril. Indeed, the social science of snow removal forced him to break a campaign promise.

When he first ran for office, Rybak told voters he was committed to devising ways to create a rapid snow-removal strike force.

“In Minnesota [snow removal] is one of the most visible city services, and there is no reason it should take three days. I promised we would take a hard look at having the entire city plowed within twenty-four hours,” Rybak wrote in “Pothole.”

However, after a series of listening tours with city residents and community stakeholders, the then-new mayor changed his tune. He hadn’t considered unintended costs.

“My brilliant idea for twenty-four hour snowplowing was a perfect plan for mass towing of cars. The people who would suffer the most would be renters, students, immigrants, and the poorest people in town — the people without garages or with language issues — who would be hurt the most by paying towing fines,” he wrote.

I touched base with Rybak Friday to see if he still agreed with the decision to renege on his campaign snow pledge of more than two decades ago. The former mayor, who now serves as president and CEO of the Minneapolis Foundation, was unequivocal.

“Yep. I had to go back on my campaign promise because of inconvenient things like ‘facts.’”

It was the late Tip O’Neill, the legendary former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who made regular use of the quote, “All politics is local.”

Few things are more local than consequential Minnesota snowfalls and the ability to navigate them. I guess it’s time for me to get a set of snow tires.