In the end, we still don’t know who our mayor-elect is, not entirely. We know his name, of course, and we’ll soon enough have a chance to catch up with his biography and intentions.
In any case, his vote total, though not a majority, was a convincing enough plurality as to make it clear that, running for a year or more against three other solid contenders (and 13 others on the ballot), Paul Young was the People’s Choice.
“I don’t care about politics,” candidate Young would say. “I just want to do the work.”
Well, there’s lots of it to do — regarding, to start with, crime, which we have too much of, and economic development, which we don’t have enough of, at least in the right places. And how the new mayor approaches those two subjects will determine a dozen other outcomes, all of them urgent.
Among the candidates we came to regard as the Top Four, Young was the one we were least familiar with at the start. Essentially he was known as someone who had performed credibly in a number of essential city and county appointive positions. A technocrat, if you will, and that he had so much backing among the influential minority (commercial interests, significant governmental doers) in a position to evaluate him was helpful in getting his campaign — and his fundraising — going.
Once launched, he sustained that campaign with nonstop energy and zeal. He was never off the clock. Needful of developing his name recognition, he made himself ubiquitous.
Given the relative closeness of the leading contenders, one can only wonder what might have happened: if Sheriff Floyd Bonner, previously known as a teddy bear and a top vote-getter in county elections, had not gotten branded, fairly or otherwise, as lax in his oversight of inmate safety; if former Mayor Willie Herenton had deigned to stoke his popularity with appearances in more public situations; if former county commissioner and NAACP head Van Turner had been able to activate his role as a Democratic avatar earlier and perhaps less abrasively.
Meanwhile, the city election remains unfinished.
There are three council positions which require a runoff, on November 16th, to determine a majority winner. In District 2, in northeast Memphis, voters must choose between former Councilman Scott McCormick, whose support base is significantly Republican, and Jerri Green, an advisor to Democratic County Mayor Lee Harris.
In District 3 (Whitehaven, Hickory Hill), the remaining candidates are activist Pearl Eva Walker and James Kirkwood, a pastor and former MPD official. And in District 7 (Downtown, Mud Island, parts of North and South Memphis), incumbent Michalyn Easter-Thomas faces businessman Jimmy Hassan.
In council elections already determined, the key outcome was in the District 5 race between former Councilman Philip Spinosa and activist newcomer Meggan Wurzburg Kiel. That was a classic showdown between conservative Spinosa (the winner) and progressive Kiel.
