Now that it’s actually 2006, the
list of candidates for major offices is getting longer – and more interesting.
Take the field for Congress in the 9th District.
This district – majority-black and
traditionally Democratic but containing also several new pockets of upscale
development – includes most of historic Memphis and would merit special
attention on that score alone. Just now, it is notable also as the launching pad
for the widely watched U.S. Senate candidacy of current incumbent Harold Ford
Jr., who basically inherited the office from his namesake father but has
since become something of a national media cynosure altogether on his own.
Up to the end of the year the
soon-to-be-vacant seat had attracted a mixed bag of promising newcomers and
seasoned activists from the local political and governmental pools. But no big
names – at least partly due to lingering suspicion that Rep. Ford might change
his mind and run for reelection. That’s about to change – especially as it
becomes more and more obvious that Ford is in the Senate race to stay.
Enter state Senator Steve Cohen,
who first ran for the congressional office in 1996 as the younger Ford’s first,
last, and only serious opponent. For years the articulate and oft feisty Cohen,
father of the state lottery and a tireless advocate for civil liberties and the
arts, has been among the state’s best-known and most respected legislators.
Cohen last week confirmed that he
will probably run for the 9th District seat.
Though he launched a
characteristically long-shot campaign on behalf of legalizing medical marijuana
only last year and is more or less constantly at odds with his party’s titular
head, Governor Phil Bredesen, concerning a variety of Tennessee-specific
issues, Cohen’s vistas have always been as much national as statewide.
And, after a quarter-century in
Nashville, he seems ready for another challenge. Given the facts that Cohen
isn’t up for reelection until 2008 and that he’s accumulated a decent war chest
over the years, he can afford to take a shot at something else this year.
Going into the holidays Cohen had
four options: a late entry into the U.S. Senate race; a damn-the-torpedoes
challenge to Bredesen; a run against District Attorney General Bill Gibbons;
and the congressional race. Only the last two prospects looked serious, and
Cohen told friends at the end of the year that he’d made up his mind to make
another run for Congress.
Though the civil-rights
credentials of Cohen, a liberal’s liberal, are in order, he’ll still have
demographics against him, as he did in 1996. But the potentially diverse field
he confronts this year gives him better chances than his essentially one-on-one
contest ten years ago against Ford, who was after all a dynastic successor. (Rufus
Jones, a state rep back then, also ran in 1996 but became marginalized as
the third man out.)
Still in the field for 2006, and
unlikely to yield, is corporate lawyer Nikki Tinker, a bright young
African-American who has garnered serious support from the city’s business and
social elite and has attracted some national attention as well. Though Alabama
transplant Tinker’s somewhat top-heavy, trickle-down campaign has not yet
sprouted real grass roots, she is personable enough to make an impact in the
long run, and in the meantime it surely doesn’t hurt to have king-sized
billboards and help from the likes of actor Morgan Freeman, who graced a
major fundraising event for Tinker last week at Isaac Hayes’ Club.
More problematic is whether Tinker, the titular
head of one of Rep. Ford’s unopposed campaigns, can convince Ford loyalists that
she’s the heir apparent – given that the congressman, his eyes on the Senate
prize, must be both officially and actually neutral. Some Ford intimates regard
Tinker’s efforts in that regard as a stretch.
Others very much in the game and
expected to be heard from include, among Democrats: Joseph Kyles,
Tyson Pratcher, Ralph White, Ron Redwing, Ed Stanton, Lee
Harris, and William Whitman. Among Republicans: Mark White, Derek
Bennett, and John Farmer.
All these have either picked up
petitions for the office, have filed, or have otherwise expressed interest in
running.
Meanwhile, at least two other
well-established political names have been talked about as likely entries: state
Representatives Joe Towns and Henri Brooks. Brooks finished a
close second to Ophelia Ford last year in the special Democratic primary
for state Senate District 29.
And another perhaps momentous name
has received a good deal of recent speculation: that of Circuit Court Judge
D’Army Bailey.
A debate last week
between Mike Rude and Mike Ritz, opponents in the Republican
primary for the District 1,Position 1 county commission seat, produced some
fireworks, notably when Rude, answering a question about his position on
consolidation, went on to denounce Memphis mayor Willie Herenton as a
proponent and then said this:
“I’m a Republican, and I’m going
to fight for Republicans, and my opponent is a financial contributor to the man that’s wanting to consolidate, and he’s supporting Ophelia Ford to beat Terry Roland, and I just – to me, it just boggles my mind why we can’t stand up and unite.”
Ritz, who acknowledged having
supported Herenton financially in the past, denied any involvement on
Democrat Ford’s behalf against the GOP’s Roland in the recent special election
for District 29 – a fact confirmed by members of Ford’s organization.
Rude later said he had meant only
to say that Herenton had supported Ophelia Ford, not Ritz. For the record, even
this is uncertain, since, while the mayor’s press secretary, Gale Jones Carson,
who is state Democratic Party secretary, supported Ford, Herenton, often a
political foe of the Ford family, took no active part in the special election.
In other races: A
possible contest is shaping up between former clerk Shep Wilbun and
Memphis school board member Wanda Halbert in the Democratic primary for
Juvenile Court clerk….Shelby County Commissioner Cleo Kirk, one of three
litigants in a term-limits case currently under appeal, has pulled a petition
for reelection, joining his protégé Bob Hatton, former interim state
senator Sidney Chism, and Jeffrey Shields as Democratic primary
candidates so far….County commissioner Tom Moss, who successfully
triangulated his reelection four years ago when Republican primary opponent
Jim Bomprezzi ran afoul of his personal Lakeland nemesis, Mark Hartz,
a spoiler entry, looks to have good odds again this year. Bomprezzi is back to
challenge Moss, now commission chairman, but so are Wyatt Bunker and
John Bogan….Still being rumored as a candidate for Juvenile Court judge is
state senator Curtis Person…. lawyer and former city council candidate
Jim Strickland will apparently square off against longtime party activist
David Upton in a contest for a Democratic state committee seat.
Thanks mainly to the
support given to the Diebold Corporation by former Election Commission chairman
and current member O.C. Pleasant, a Democrat, Diebold machines won out
over models proposed by the rival ES & S Company in 3-1 vote by the commission
last week to determine the election machinery that will be used in this year’s
local elections.
Voting with Pleasant for Diebold
were Republican members Nancye Hines and Rich Holden; voting
against Hines’ motion for Diebold was Democratic member Maura Black Sullivan,
who was returning to action after a recent serious illness. Commission chairman
Greg Duckett abstained.
The backstory was that Holden, who
harbored serious doubts about Diebold as a company, had intended to vote for ES
& S and that Duckett was regarded as a tiebreaker in that case for ES & S. But
Holden said he found his hands tied when representatives of both the county
purchasing department and the commission staff announced endorsements of Diebold.
At the rank-and-file level, local
Democrats tended to favor E.S. & S, while Republicans on the whole supported
Diebold.
Perhaps more meaningful in the
long run was the commission’s endorsement by a 3-2 party-line vote — the
Democrats prevailing – for add-on “Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail” technology
which would provide a reliable paper trail to authenticate the results of local
elections. VPAT, as the technology is called for short, must still be approved
by the state for use in local elections.