John Branston (“City Beat,” July 5) says Willie Herenton
will win. I say: No way. Put simply, Memphians are tired of Mayor Willie
Herenton, including his shenanigans and histrionics. This is not unlike the
fatigue the American public is suffering with our current president (and the
members of his party), and which was substantially responsible for the transfer
of power from Republicans to Democrats in our recent congressional elections.
Just like the W. in the White House, W.W. Herenton has an
Iraq as well. It’s called crime. Memphians are scandalized by an upsurge in
violent crime in the Bluff City, a troubling trend that has placed the city in
the first tier of the most dangerous cities in the country.
History has a way of showing mayors who preside over
dangerous trends in their cities to the door. So too will it happen in Memphis,
where — other than calling for an unfunded, and probably unfundable, dramatic increase in the number of police — our Mayor has done little or
nothing to stem the advancing tide of criminality in our city.
The second element in Herenton fatigue is also analogous to
the national scene. Memphians have watched as an arrogant, aloof, frequently
disconnected mayor has launched all manner of attacks on those he perceives as his enemies. Remember: The last unhinged politician who compiled an “enemies
list” was Richard Nixon, and we know how well that turned out.
Herenton attacks the media and anyone who dares speak out
against him as being racist or, worse, ungodly. One need only look at the
recent, surrealistic press conference conducted by the mayor in which he accused
several unnamed “snakes” of mounting a campaign to unseat him. Never reluctant
to play the race card when it suits him, the Mayor suggested that those out to
get him were motivated by racial animus.
Never mind that the Memphis electorate (including black
voters) is increasingly showing the ability to discriminate among candidates,
and not on the basis of race, but on the basis of competence — a phenomenon
most vividly displayed in the elections of Steve Cohen to Congress and A C
Wharton as county mayor. So where’s the race card in that deck (other than the
mayor’s joker)?
The mayor’s credibility is at an all-time low. One clear
proof of that comes from the recent thumping that his man, Robert Spence, took
in a race for the state senate seat vacated by Cohen. The fact that voters
apparently were more influenced by a circular circulated by lead “snake” Richard
Fields calling attention to Spence’s shortcomings, than by Spence’s close
affiliation with the Mayor bodes ill for the voters’ willingness to credulously
accept the Mayor’s conspiracy theory, and therefore for the Mayor’s reelection
itself.
And the ultimate factor in Herenton fatigue is doubt about
his competence. Whether it’s raising city property taxes to the point where
Memphis enjoys the distinction of having the highest property taxes in
Tennessee, presiding over a failing public school system, demonstrating the
same kind of cronyism in the appointment and retention of city officials
(remember Joseph Lee?), or the granting of favors to his pals like the other “W”
(remember beer board baron Reginald French?), Herenton has disaffected wide
swaths of the Memphis electorate, regardless of race, and several early polls
(which the Mayor predictably discounted) showed that.
Finally, the one potentially
superseding, intervening force that would assure Herenton’s loss would come when
and if Shelby County Mayor Wharton comes to his senses and realizes that the
future of this city is far more important than his false sense of loyalty to a
man who is dragging down both that city, and the county it sits in along with it.
I predict that
sixteen years of King Willie will be end up being enough for most voters in
Memphis. What’s more, I also predict that black voters who are tired of being
played by a mayor who, when it suits him, cozies up to the
same constituency of white businessmen he now denounces will see
through his latest transparent tirade and turn him out of office.
