New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu came to Memphis and The Peabody Thursday and had the audience in the palm of his hand. Memphis Mayor A C Wharton came to the Memphis City Council Thursday and had them at his throat.
Landrieu was guest of honor at an event called “A Summons to Memphis” sponsored by our sister publication Memphis magazine. He said lots of nice things about Memphis and suggested that mayors and cities try to do things that two-thirds or 66 percent of “the people” will support, writing off the other 33 percent as hardcore opposed.
He contrasted the idea of trying to achieve a majority of “50 percent plus one” (“which doesn’t work because somebody can flip that one”) with “governing on the 66 percent model,” in that “Something that works for almost everybody is always better than something that works for half the people, plus one.”
Coincidentally, Landrieu, who comes from a political family, was elected in 2010 with 67 percent of the vote.
Wharton was guest of honor at an event that could have been called “A Summons to The Reckoning” with a mostly cranky Budget Committee of the City Council. Coincidentally, Wharton was elected in 2011 with 65 percent of the vote. Close enough to make him, like Landrieu, a certified 66-percenter.
But if you want to be hailed as a great guy mayor with a bright future, it is not a bad idea to travel to another city where you can smile, compliment, tell jokes, and speak in platitudes. I have no doubt A C Wharton would get a standing ovation as luncheon speaker next week anywhere in New Orleans.
The 66-percent doctrine is brilliant in its simplicity. And if it is not taken too literally, it makes some sense, particularly when a city is on its heels from a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina or reveling in euphoria over the success of its favorite professional sports team as New Orleans was with the Saints in 2010.
But it breaks down when you apply it to specific ideas and things and have to put a price on them, as Wharton did Thursday when he floated a 50-percent property tax increase and 3,250 city employee layoffs as the extremes of the spend-cut continuum.