Will he or won’t he? That’s a question that will be
answered one way or another on Monday by the Shelby County Commission….No,
strike that, it’s several questions that will be answered any of several
different ways on Monday by the commission, which will name a successor to
former District 4 commissioner David Lillard, now the treasurer of the state of
Tennessee. (And there’s a she or two who figure into the question, as well.)
(1) Will Steve Mulroy, the commission’s Great Articulator, channel
Profiles in Courage or play point guard for the Democratic majority that
wants to overturn recent tradition and vote one of its own into an historical
Republican seat? (Whichever course he takes, Mulroy is sure to enunciate it in
terms that sound like part-Socratic dialogue and part Supreme-Court decision.)
(2) Will J.W. Gibson, the erstwhile Republican and current Democratic member,
shift to party hopeful Matt Kuhn if his first choice, activist Adrienne Pakis-Gillon,
fails to make it to a second ballot?
(3) Will veteran Democrat Joe Ford stand by his reported decision to vote
with the Republicans in defense of the endangered tradition?
(4) Will Linda Kerley, the former longtime Collierville mayor, become a
fallback choice that members of both parties can vote for if the Republican
consensus candidate, former commissioner Tommy Hart of Collierville (who
pronounced himself “shovel-ready”) fails to make it?
(5) Will Sidney Chism, a Democrat who reportedly has been trying to arrange
horse trades with Republican commissioners so as to succeed fellow Democrat
Deidre Malone as chairman next year, vote with his party or cut his own deal?
(6) Will any other candidates from the nine who formally submitted
applications to the commission stand a chance? For the record, that would
include: John R. Bogan, a newcomer to politics who now works as a real estate
appraiser in the Assessor’s office; Jim Bomprezzi, a former Lakeland mayor who
has run for the commission seat before; Rudolph Daniels, a widely traveled
computer consultant; Chris Price, who sold his Ford dealership in the last
several weeks and has been backed by Pete Aviotti, an aide to Memphis Mayor
Willie Herenton; and Terry Roland, a store-owner well-known for a nearly
successful race against state Senator Ophelia Ford.
All the applicants managed
impressive moments in public interviews with the commission last week. Some of
them, like contenders Kerley and Hart, pronounced themselves satisfied to be
interim appointees, serving only until the next regularly scheduled countywide
election in 2010. Others, like Kuhn, a former Democratic Party chairman whose
father Brian is the current county attorney, haven’t decided whether they’d be
candidates in 2010; and still others have — like Roland, who heartily announced to the
other contenders, “I’m gonna run, and if you’re gonna run, you better have your
game on.”
All are at least nominal
Republicans except for Kuhn and Pakis-Gillon. All professed themselves willing
to work across the aisle to achieve common results with members of the other
party. On the eve of the voting, members of both parties were touting Kuhn as
the likely winner. But other possibilities exist.
Since the GOP’s Lillard has
already vacated his seat, the voting strength of the two parties is 7 to 5 in
favor of the Democrats. Though, as mentioned, Hart and Kerley are the
Republicans with the best chance of forestalling a Democratic win by these
numbers alone, some of the others could turn out to be long shots under
circumstances of prolonged balloting.
