The Long Run

Maryland's governor Wes Moore is a former Rhodes Scholar and paratrooper inspiring great expectations. His message? Service will save us.

- By Taylor Antrim. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz

On a spring day, Maryland’s capital, Annapolis, has a toybox air—colonial row houses neatly ordered along brick laid streets, the Chesapeake glittering in the harbor. Midshipmen from the Naval Academy, nearing graduation, show their families around in their dress whites. There are no fewer than three places on Main Street to get ice cream.

At the center of it all are Government House, a century-old residence in the Georgian style, and just a stone’s throw away, the oldest functioning capitol building in the country, Maryland’s State House, which dates to 1772. The two are ringed by lawns, wrought iron, shaded by oak trees, and it is inside this cosseted enclave of American history that you’ll find the state’s 44-year-old governor, Wes Moore.

It is hard not to think about good luck and good fortune coming here: a picturesque city and a charmed life within it. Moore will tell you himself that his life has been charmed. “My journey has been