The mayor, who was active on behalf of the 2000 presidential candidacy of Al Gore and calls himself the “point man” in Shelby County this year for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Bredesen, said he had no intention of reconsidering his participation alongside Alexander, whom he called “a very good friend, one I’ve known for 20 years, and who supported educational reform when I was superintendent.”HERENTON FOR LAMAR ALEXANDER?
A large number of politically and socially active Shelby Countians got invitations in the mail over the weekend from a group calling itself “Shelby County Young Professionals.” Recipients were invited to a reception next Monday night at the Plaza Club, to be highlighted by two “special guests”: Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton, a Democrat, and former Governor Lamar Alexander, now the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate.
Consider that the R.S.V.P. number indicated on the invitation connects directly to Alexander’s campaign headquarters, that most of the names on the host list are those of well-known local Republicans (one of whom frankly described the group as an ad hoc support group for the Alexander campaign), and that Alexander has an active Democratic opponent for the Senate, 5th District Democratic congressman Bob Clement of Nashville.
All of that should add up to an inadvertent involvement and an embarrassment for Mayor Herenton, who, along with several members of his inner circle, is from time to time quite active in Democratic ranks. Right?
Wrong. Apprised of the close — indeed, seamless — connections between Monday night’s event and the Alexander campaign, Herenton, who was active on behalf of the 2000 presidential candidacy of Al Gore and calls himself the “point man” in Shelby County this year for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Bredesen, said he had no intention of reconsidering his participation alongside Alexander, whom he called “ a very good friend, one I’ve known for 20 years, and who supported educational reform when I was superintendent [of Memphis schools].”
On Monday, Gale Jones Carson, the mayoral press secretary who doubles as Shelby County Democratic chairperson, commented that the invitation had surprised her, in that she had thought the group sponsoring the reception was Mpact, a non-partisan group with a diverse membership, ethnically and politically, and one which, she said, encourages participation in public affairs by young people. The host members listed on the invitation would seem to be members of both Mpact and Shelby County Young Professionals, an organization described by one of its principals as “designed to promote Lamar to as many different people as possible.”
David Upton, a local Democratic activist, was one of several Democrats who got the invitation and said it appeared evident to him that the ad hoc GOP group used Mpact’s normal mailing list.
Herenton himself was untroubled by the nature of the sponsorship. “I never did think it was an Mpact event,” he said, noting that his son Rodney Herenton was an Mpact member. The younger Herenton is also listed prominently, with his wife Andrea, as a member of the host group for Shelby County Young Professionals.
During the recent Shelby County mayoral contest, when it was strongly rumored that then county mayor Jim Rout, a Republican, was supporting Democrat A C Wharton, the ultimate winner, and not GOP nominee George Flinn, Rout availed himself of the circumlocution that he was a Republican and supported “the ticket.” Democrat Herenton declined to express himself in analagous terms and, while he denied that he would formally “endorse” Alexander, he would not disavow the word “support.”
“As the mayor of Memphis, I hold a non-partisan position,” Herenton noted, and he recalled that prominent Democrats, like members of the politically influential Farris family, had in 1991 supported his mayoral opponent, then incumbent Dick Hackett, who was presumed to be a Republican. “And you have the fact that the local Democratic Party has always been controlled by the Ford family,” said Herenton, thereby invoking the once intense rivalry between himself and the local political organization led by former 9th District congressman Harold Ford Sr.
As it happens, the former congressman, who was succeeded in Congress by his son, U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., was in Memphis this week to host a Tuesday night event on behalf of the campaigns of both Clement and Bredesen. At some point, the involvement of the senior and junior Fords in the 2002 campaign, coupled with Herenton’s tacit support of Alexander, may well reignite a political feud which has been smoldering quietly since Herenton’s overwhelming defeat of then city councilman (now county commissioner) Joe Ford in the 1999 city mayor’s race.
Herenton acknowledges that “several state Democrats” have complained about his cozienss with Alexander, and several local Democrats seem discontented by the mayor’s position in the Senate race, especially when he is simultaneously attempting to exercise a local leadership role on behalf of the gubernatorial campaign of Bredesen, a former mayor of Nashville. For the record, notes Herenton, a majority of his campaign money has always come from “Republican businessmen,” and, ironically, the Memphis mayor’s current distance from Clement and dalliance with Alexander closely resembles his stance in 1994, when he kept Bredesen at arm’s length during the Nashville mayor’s first gubernatorial run and lent tangible –if tacit — support to fellow Memphian Don Sundquist, a Republican and the ultimate winner.
“We’re glad to get crossover support for Bredesen,” cracked lawyer David Cocke, a former Democratic county chairman and Ford ally who has often been at odds with the mayor’s party surrogates — notably Carson and erstwhile party chairman and former Teamster leader Sidney Chism. Both Carson and Chism are key members of the local Democratic coordinating committee, whose membership is currently under challenge from several local elected officials.
Meanwhile, Carol Andrews, a spokesperson for the Clement campaign in Nashville, declined Tuesday to be critical of Mayor Herenton, saying only that she expected the Democratic nominee to be supported “by a broad array of people in Shelby County” and that the Clement campaign would “welcome with open arms” anybody who was keeping a distance right now but might come aboard later on.
Harold Ford Sr., mellowed by his absence from the local political wars (he’s a consultant living mainly in Florida) and perhaps mindful, too, of the relatively bipartisan needs of his own situation these days, was careful to stress “unity” at the Democratic conclave at Cal’s Restaurant in east Memphis Tuesday night, and he would speak no evil of Herenton, his erstwhile nemesis, insisting that “the mayor’s going to be all right.”
That, of course, depends on the political angle one views the situation from, and, from the standpoint of Ford and other Democrats, it remains to be seen.
