Mike Wintroath, Post-Gazette Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl speaks during a lecture series at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service yesterday in Little Rock, Ark. Click photo for larger image.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- In nine months as mayor, Luke Ravenstahl has been a mournful successor, arena negotiator, neighborhood warrior, and occasionally an uneasy referee of political scrimmages. Yesterday, he was reborn as a poster child for the future of politics.

A future Bill Clinton? Since the mayor was among Arkansans, the possibility came up.

"If you think, he's 27? He could be the president," said Jimmy Rhodes Jr., the 24-year-old mayor of Augusta, Ark., population 2,600, who confessed to having a touch of ambition himself. "By the time he's in his 40s, no telling what he -- or myself -- will be doing."

Mr. Ravenstahl was in what locals call "The Natural State" as a speaker in the Faces of the Future lecture series at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

The Little Rock school, which offers a master's degree in public service, chose the mayor as one of a handful of faces of the future following the shower of national news media attention surrounding his political ascent.

"To be the youngest big-city mayor in American history [when he took the office] at 26 is really intriguing," said Ben Beaumont, the school's communications director. "He's really done a lot of great things in Pittsburgh. ... So we thought it would be a great fit."

Little Rock, the state capital from whence Mr. Clinton ascended to the presidency, is a city that loves politics. Speeches by the likes of presidential political guru Karl Rove or former Secretary of State Madeline Albright draw 700 to 1,100 attendees to the Clinton School.

Mr. Ravenstahl drew around 150, which organizers considered a good crowd for someone who isn't a national name, at least not yet.

Back home, Mr. Ravenstahl dodges questions about his ambitions beyond governing the city and winning the November election against Republican Mark DeSantis. In Arkansas, he allowed himself to dream a little.

"Being here at the Clinton School makes me reflect on some of the parallels between what has happened in my life and that of our former president, William Jefferson Clinton," he said early in his speech. Mr. Clinton became governor at age 32, and president not too much later.

Asked by one attendee about his dreams, though, the mayor went back to being careful.

"I really don't get too far ahead of myself -- I try not to," he said. When people suggest he'll be a national leader in 10 years, the thought leaves him "terrified," he said, not the least because of the caustic political climate.

"This is the era of, in many ways, the losing of trust in government by the public."

So where will Mr. Ravenstahl be in his 30s? Well, that could depend in part on luck, a force the mayor spent much of his speech discussing.

Beating an incumbent councilwoman at age 23, becoming president of council almost by default at 25, then rising to the city's top office upon the death of a recently elected mayor -- some would call that luck.

"Luck," Mr. Ravenstahl countered, quoting the Roman politician Seneca, "is when preparation meets opportunity."

The mayor made what is, for him, a rare reference to the skepticism he met early in his abridged council term.

"I remember vividly those first encounters with the established leaders," he said in his speech. "Their half-hearted offers to assist were overshadowed by their suggestive mannerisms that reflected their true feelings -- feelings of doubt and feelings of disbelief. It was commonplace, initially, to receive no more than a few seconds of anybody's time. I was the outcast, the young guy, the fluke."

He urged the students in the crowd to "overcome those people who will try to rattle you. ... Somewhere back in Pittsburgh, a columnist is writing his or her perspective on how I could be doing better, a talk show host is flooding the airwaves with half-truths, at my expense. ... Do I care? No."

Then there are the Internet blogs.

"Many of them are interesting in the way they portray what I'm doing," he said. "Very negative. And my mom, she reads those all the time. ... It bothers her more than it bothers me."

The mayor flies back to Pittsburgh today. He left behind an impression.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up being governor some day, or senator," said Jonathan Mwaba, a 27-year-old student at the Clinton School who is a dual citizen of South Africa and Zambia, and is already plotting his 2016 run for the presidency of the latter nation.

"He's got everything," said Steve Stephens, a former aide to the late Sen. John McClellan, an Arkansas Democrat. "He's got looks. He's got charisma. He's warm, and looks to be well-informed. ... He has the qualities to be very successful."

And is there a downside to being mayor at 27?

"When you achieve success at an early age," Mr. Stephens said, "you have so many years ahead of you to make a mistake."