Tag: AC Wharton

POLITICS: New Mayor, New Council?

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date February 1, 2009

CREDIT: jb

Naming “crime, cronyism, and corruption” as major issues in
this year’s mayoral election, candidate Carol Chumney addressed the
Germantown Democratic Club Monday night, pledging if elected to “get a good
team” in order to bring renewed efficiency to Memphis city government.

Subsequently, city council member Chumney fielded at least
two questions from the membership (which includes several Memphis voters who
live in Cordova) about her reported difficulties with the mayor’s office and
fellow council members.

One member asked: What about her “relation building” and
“leadership style”? Would these be obstacles?

Chumney responded that she had developed good relations
with fellow legislators while a state House member for 13 years and said, “City
government has been a little different because there’s been quite frankly some
corruption. Many times I would be the only one who would stand up and say
anything. Some folks are going to get mad at you. I’m a strong leader, I will
tell you that.”

When another member followed that up by asking if the city
council would back her proposals if she were elected mayor, Chumney said, “We’re
going to elect a new city council.” Noting the virtual turnover of membership in
the county commission in last year’s elections, she expressed confidence that
city voters would follow suit. “It’s going to happen here. They’re going to vote
and vote in a new team.”

Pledging to renew cooperation between city and county
law-enforcement teams, Chumney said, “It’s disrespectful to expect the police to
go two years without a pay raise while asking them to risk their lives for us.”

She repeated her objections to Riverfront Development
Corporation proposals, including the recently approved Beale St. Landing
project, and called both for the city’s retention of The Coliseum and for
“something classy” in the downtown Pyramid.

Chumney said she’d heard “disturbing rumors” about the past
management of Memphis Networx and reported plans for its pending sale and
promised “to get to the bottom of it.” She said the council’s authority over a
prospective sale was uncertain but said she was seeking authoritative word on
that from the state Attorney General’s office.

Germantown is becoming an important campaign venue for
candidates running for office in adjacent Memphis. A week or so earlier members
of the Republican Women of Purpose organization heard a presentation at the
Germantown Public Library from Brian Stephens, city council candidate in
District 2, the East Memphis-suburban seat being vacated by incumbent Brent
Taylor

Stephens has been active in an effort to strengthen laws
regulating sexually oriented businesses (S.O.B.’s in the accepted jargon) and
specifically to make sure that veteran topless-club entrepreneur Steve Cooper
does not convert a supposed “Italian restaurant” now under construction in
Cordova into an S.O.B.

He discussed those efforts but offered other opinions as
well, some of them surprising – a statement that “consolidation is coming,
whether we like it or not,” for example – and some not, like his conviction (a
la Taylor) that tax increases are not necessary for the city to maintain and
improve basic services.

In general, Stephens, who seems to have a head start on
other potential District 2 aspirants, made an effort to sound accommodationist
rather than confrontational, stressing a need for council members to transcend
racial and urban-vs.-suburban divisions and expressing confidence in the ability
of currently employed school personnel to solve the system’s problems.

Also
establishing an apparent early lead over potential rivals is current school
board member Stephanie Gatewood, running for the District 1 council seat
being vacated by incumbent E.C. Jones. Gatewood’s fundraiser at the Fresh
Slices restaurant on Overton Park last Thursday night drew a respectable crowd,
and her membership in Bellevue Baptist Church on the suburban side of District 1
provides an anchor in addition to an expected degree of support from the
district’s African-American population.

One night
earlier, Wednesday night, had been a hot one for local politics, with three
more-than-usually significant events, and there were any number of dedicated
and/or well-heeled visitors to all three:

–Residents of the posh
Galloway Drive area where U of M basketball coach John Calipari resides
are surely used to long queues of late-model vehicles stretching every which way
in the neighborhood, especially in election season when Calipari’s home is
frequently the site of fundraisers for this or that candidate.

But Wednesday night’s event, a $250-a-head fundraiser for District 5 city
council candidate Jim Strickland, was surely a record-setter –
out-rivaling not only Calipari’s prior events but most other such gatherings in
Memphis history, including those for senatorial and gubernatorial candidates. A
politically diverse crowd estimated at 300 to 500 people showed up, netting
Strickland more than $60,000 for the night and bringing his total “cash on hand”
to $100,000.

–Meanwhile, mayoral candidate Herman Morris attracted
several hundred attendees to the formal opening of his sprawling, high-tech
campaign headquarters on Union Avenue – the same HQ that, week before last,
suffered a burglary – of computers containing sensitive information, for one
thing – a fact that some Morris supporters find suspicious in light of various
other instances of hanky-panky currently being alleged in the mayoral race.

— Yet a a third major political gathering took place Wednesday night, as Shelby
County Mayor A C Wharton was the beneficiary of a big-ticket fundraiser
at The Racquet Club. Proceeds of that one have been estimated in the $50,000
range – a tidy sum for what the county mayor alleges (and alleged again
Wednesday night) is intended only as a kind of convenience fund, meant for
charitable donations and various other protocol circumstances expected of
someone in his position.

Right. Meanwhile, Wharton declined to address the most widely speculated-upon
subject in Memphis politics: Will he or won’t he enter the city mayor’s race? As
everybody knows, and as the county mayor has informally acknowledged, he is the
subject these days of non-stop blandishments in that regard, and there’s very
little doubt that these have accelerated since a dramatic recent press
conference by Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton alleging “the 2007 Political
Conspiracy.”

While some of
Mayor Wharton’s intimates at the Wednesday night affair were keeping to the line
that the chances of his running for city mayor were minimal to non-existent,
their answers to inquiries about the matter were delivered after what we’ll call
meaningfully inflected pauses. The door may be shut for now, but it clearly
isn’t padlocked.

Chumney in Germantown

NASHVILLE
— The name of McWherter, prominent in Tennessee politics for most of the latter
20th century, will apparently resurface in fairly short order, as Jackson lawyer
and businessman Mike McWherter, son of two-term former governor Ned
McWherter, is making clear his plans to challenge U.S. Senator Lamar
Alexander‘s reelection bid next year.

Apparently only one thing could derail Democrat McWherter — a renewed Senate
candidacy by former Memphis congressman Harold Ford Jr., who last year
narrowly — lost a Senate race to the current Republican incumbent, Bob
Corker. “I don’t think I would compete against Harold. But I don’t think he
will run,” McWherter said in an interview with The Flyer at Saturday’s
annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Nashville.

The 52-year-old activist sees Alexander as a slavish follower of President
George W. Bush.

“With one or two exceptions, he’s done everything the president has wanted him
to do. He’s toed the party line,” said McWherter, who has recently paid courtesy
calls on ranking Democrats, both in Tennessee and in Washington, D.C., informing
them of his interest in running next year and soliciting their support.

Keynote speaker
at the Democrats’ dinner in Nashville was presidential hopeful Bill
Richardson, whose situation somewhat paralleled that of former Massachusetts
governor Mitt Romney, who earlier this month had been the featured
speaker at the state Republicans’ Statesmen’s Dinner, also in Nashville.

On that occasion, Romney – who had been invited before the entrance of former
Tennessee senator Fred Thompson became likely – was a de facto lame-duck
keynoter, and, mindful of the attendees’ expected loyalty to favorite-son
Thompson, cracked wanly, “I know
there’s been some speculation by folks about a certain former senator from
Tennessee getting into the presidential race, and I know everybody’s waiting,
wondering. But I take great comfort from the fact than no one in this room, not
a single person, is going to be voting for — Al Gore.”

That bit of verbal bait-and-switch got the expected laugh, and so did a joke
Saturday night by New Mexico governor Richardson, who uttered some ritual praise
of native Tennessean and former presidential candidate Gore and then, when the
crowd warmly applauded the former vice president, jested, “Let’s not overdo it.
I don’t want him in this race!”

Tags AC Wharton, Al Gore, Calipari, Carol Chumney, Fred Thompson, fundraiser, Mayor, McWherter, political, Politics, race, Romney

Politics Politics Feature

Herenton: A Winner Again — But Still in Need of Unity

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date October 6, 2007

CREDIT: Preston Lauterbach

BY
JACKSON BAKER |
OCT 6, 2007

Willie Herenton, Memphis’
African-American mayor, easily won reelection to an unprecedented fifth term
Thursday in a city election whose outcome was strangely anti-climactic given
advance hoopla from recent polls that seemed to promise a tight three-way
race.

Sorely tested for the first
time for the first time since his first mayoral race in 1991, the ex-Golden
Glover, who was undefeated in the ring as a youth, maintained his
unblemished record as a political campaigner, as well.

With all precincts in,
Herenton had 70,177 votes, or 42 percent of the total. He was followed by city
councilwoman Carol Chumney, with 57,180 votes, or 35 percent, and former
Memphis Light Gas & Water head Herman Morris, who garnered 35, 158 votes, or
21 percent.

In the end, Herenton – whose
vote came almost exclusively from the city’s black voters – seemed to have
made the case that the race was between himself and Chumney, a white who had
played scourge and gadfly to his administration for the last four years.

A rush to the polls of some
75,000 voters, a record, in the two-week early-voting period was oddly
counter-pointed by a smaller-than-expected turnout on Election Day.
Ultimately, the same demographic inner-city base that prevailed for Herenton
in his historic 1991 win over an entrenched white incumbent, Dick Hackett, was
at his disposal again. Demographic trends have since accelerated, and an
estimated 65 percent of Thursday’s voters in a city now firmly majority-black
were African-American.

A Head Start in the Early Vote

Late in the campaign, as polls showed her within a
percentage point or two of Herenton, a confident Chumney had proclaimed,
“We’re winning early voting, with fifty percent of the vote,” That turned out
to be well short of the mark (Herenton netted an estimated 41 percent of early
votes). Chumney’s expectations were as unrealistic in their way as the
consistent claims of former Shelby County Commissioner John Willingham, the
most prominent of the also-rans in a 14-strong field, that he had a dual base
among Republicans and black Memphians that would propel him to
victory.

Willingham, a white, a maverick, and a conservative,
proved to have no base at all, finishing with less than 1 percent of the vote.
His possession of an endorsement from the Shelby County Republican Party
gained him virtually nothing, as Chumney, who served 13 years in the
legislature as a Democratic state representative, captured most Republican
votes in a city where the terms “Republican” and “white” have a significant
overlap.

It seemed clear that the latter of those two
descriptors played a profound role in the outcome of this election, as it had
in Herenton’s first race in 1991. Third-place finisher Morris, the
mustachioed, reserved former head of Memphis Light Gas & Water, the city
utility, spent most of his time competing with Chumney for white voters and,
though African-American himself and, for that matter, a stalwart of the NAACP
and a veteran of the civil rights struggle, fared no better among black voters
than she did. His failure to gain traction in the inner city was owing to
several factors – ranging from his decidedly bourgeois image to an apparent
reluctance among black voters to let themselves be divided.

The Ford No-Show

An interesting sidelight to the campaign was an all-out
publicity campaign by the Herenton campaign last weekend promising
reconciliation between the mayor and his longtime inner-city adversary, former
congressman Harold Ford Sr., now a well-paid consultant living in Florida.
Ford, said a variety of well-circulated handbills, had joined “Team Herenton
’07” and would appear with Herenton at a giant rally at the mayor’s South
Memphis church. That would have been a reprise of the ad hoc collaboration
between the two rivals that most observers credit for Herenton’s bare 162-vote
margin of victory in 1991.

In the event, Ford was a no-show at the Tuesday night
rally, and the eleventh-hour embarrassment for the mayor was doubled by the
former congressman’s disinclination, when contacted by the media, even to make
a public statement endorsing Herenton. The whole affair lent an air of
desperation to the Herenton campaign effort but turned out to be no big deal.
If anything, it reinforced the general impression of precipitant decline for
the once legendary Ford-family political organization – beset by convictions,
indictments, and other tarnish and with its current star, Harold Ford Jr.,
having decamped for Nashville and the Democratic Leadership Council.

David Cocke, a former Democratic Party chairman and a
longtime ally of the Ford political clan, supported Chumney but foresaw the
Herenton victory, putting it this way late in the campaign: “Most people do
not vote on the basis of ideas or issues. They vote from the standpoint of a
common cultural experience.” And from that standpoint Willie Herenton, a
onetime Golden Gloves boxing champion who contemptuously dismissed the visibly
mature Morris as a “boy” trying to do a man’s job, had first dibs on the
street cred.

Still, the former schools superintendent is also a
seasoned executive who in his four terms to date had brought about extensive
downtown redevelopment and earned a good working relationship with the Memphis
business establishment – one, however, that had begun to fray around the edges
in the last year or so due to a rising crime rate (only last week FBI
statistics showed the city to be Number One in that regard in the nation) and
fluctuating economic indicators.

At some point in 2008, either on the August general
ballot for two countywide offices or on the November ballot for state and
federal offices, the Charter Commission impaneled by Memphis voters last year
will almost certainly include a provision limiting the mayor and members of
the city council to two four-year terms each. A similar provision in a county
referendum more than a decade ago prevailed by a whopping 84 percent majority,
and results of that sort can be anticipated from next year’s city
vote.

But in the meantime Willie Herenton, who had earned the
unofficial title “Mayor for Life” from friends and foes alike until doubt
crept into that consensus toward the end of his latest term, will be
grandfathered in. He may indeed end up serving indefinitely or may, as many
expect, quit his new term midway, making way for his longtime friend and
sometime campaign manager, Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton, also an African
American. Wharton’s easygoing presence and appeal across both racial and
political lines made him the subject of a widely based draft movement in the
weeks leading up to last July’s withdrawal deadline.

The two mayors had dinner together on the eve of that
deadline, after which Wharton, who had made a show of considering a run,
withdrew from consideration – diffidently but conclusively. That outcome has
given rise to persistent rumors of a deal between the two chief executives, in
which an early exit by Herenton would permit not only Wharton’s succession in
a special election but some sort of stratagem to create a de facto
consolidation between city and county governments. Herenton had served notice
in this campaign year that he intended one last major push for his long-held
goal of consolidation if reelected.

Consolidation Still on His Plate?

When then Nashville mayor Bill Purcell addressed the
Memphis Rotary Club this past summer, he provided some backup for his Memphis
counterpart, who had introduced him, telling the assembled business and civic
leaders that Metropolitan government had been “the smartest thing that
Nashville ever did” and that, if Memphians wanted a government that was too
big, too expensive, and too political, they should keep things just the way
they are. Acknowledging the rivalry between the two Tennessee metropolises,
Purcell quipped that the status quo suited him just fine.

In his victory speech Thursday night, Herenton was
ambivalent on the matter of unity. Even while savoring his victory and
counting his blessings, he expressed what appeared to be sincere hurt over his
unpopularity among white voters – a source of tut-tutting to some Herenton
detractors, a redeeming sign of vulnerability to others. “I’m going to be nice
tonight,” Herenton he had said early on, “but there are some mean,
mean-spirited people in Memphis. These are the haters. I know how to shake
them off,”

Maybe so, maybe no. In any case, he made a pass at
being conciliatory. Looking ahead to restoring relations with the business
community and stemming white resentment (and population flow outward), and
perhaps also reflecting on a newly elected city council which will have a
majority of new members, the mayor said, “Memphis has some major decisions to
make. We have to decide if we want to be one city…or if we want to be a
divided city.”

Thursday’s election results reinforced a sense of
division. “This city is still highly racially polarized,” said John Ryder, a
longtime Memphis Republican figure who co-chaired the campaign of third-place
finisher Morris. “The man in the middle got squeezed,” Ryder said. He was
referring to his candidate, but his remark clearly had more general
application.

Tags 'Unity, AC Wharton, black, Chumney, democratic, Harold Ford Sr, Herenton, Mayor, Morris, race, republican, Team Herenton, White

Politics Politics Feature

What We Talk About When We Talk About Running for Mayor

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date September 11, 2007

CREDIT: jb

Despite the opting out of one potential lead actor, Shelby
County Mayor A C Wharton, and the refusal of another, incumbent Memphis
mayor Willie Herenton, to play ensemble – this year’s mayor’s race has had its dramatic, as well
as its comedic, moments.

To see what we mean, go to “Political Beat”.

Tags AC Wharton, Herenton, mayoral race

Politics Politics Feature

POLITICS: In the Spotlight

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date September 11, 2007

CREDIT: jb

There come times when you wonder why everyone isn’t a
political junkie. Last year’s nail-biting U.S. Senate race between winner Bob
Corker and (narrow) loser Harold Ford Jr. – climaxing with the now
famous Battle of Wilson Air, when the GOP’s Corker deftly out dueled Democrat
Ford at the latter’s ambush of a Corker press conference — was one such time.

Another, believe it or not, is this year’s Memphis mayoral
race, which — despite the opting out of one potential lead actor, Shelby
County Mayor A C Wharton, and the refusal of another, incumbent Memphis
mayor Willie Herenton, to play ensemble – has had its dramatic, as well
as its comedic, moments.

Much of the entertainment value has come, as expected, from
the scramble involving the three major contenders to Herenton – city
councilwoman Carol Chumney, former MLGW head Herman Morris, and
former Shelby County Commissioner John Willingham. We’ll get to that core
drama in a moment.

But besides this main plot, which some have called by the
shorthand initials A.B.H. (for “Anybody-but-Herenton”), there’s running
mini-drama involving the several supporting players in the 14-member mayoral
field. We can call that one A.G.H. – for “Ain’t Gonna Happen.”

For, if there is real doubt as to whether Willingham, whom
the polls have shown to be hovering in the low single digits, is delusional in
his hopes of winning, it’s a dead-level cinch that these others are. None of
them even blip the radar screen.

Which is not to say that they haven’t made their
contribution to the dialogue. Nor that they haven’t made for compelling theater
on those rare occasions when they’ve been admitted to a forum involving the Big
Three (as for the Big Unit himself, the incumbent mayor, fahgitaboutit!, he’s
made it clear he’s not about to show in tandem with the others).

Consider this piece of wisdom from Laura Davis Aaron,
delivered at the League of Women Voters’ omnium gatherum affair at the
Main Library on Poplar on Sunday:

Knowing what she was about to unleash, Aaron first issued
this full-disclosure caveat to the attending audience (fairly numerous, all
things considered): “I want you close your eyes for a minute. I wanted to be a
lawyer once, but they ran out of the courtroom.” Non sequitur or not, we got the
drift of that. Then came the moment she was preparing us for:

“God gave me a plan and a vison: “Dr. Aaron, you must put
senior citizens in The Pyramid!'” (Pause.) “And I said: ‘To do what?'”

Once again the voice of the Almighty: “‘Take what they’ve
got in their homes to the Pyramid. and you’re gonna have them run a flea
market in that Pyramid!'”

And that, mind you, was only the first of two instances of
divine intervention at Sunday’s forum. Aaron was followed minutes later by
fellow candidate Dewayne A. Jones, who proclaimed more modestly, “God
makes the leader. I am your David,” and promised at some point to bring
forth his own “vision of empowerment.” He may even have had it ready on Sunday,
but wisely decided to hold it in reserve after Aaron’s bombshell.

There were contributions of a more secular sort from the
candidate chorus on Sunday. Roosevelt Jamison, in particular, proved
himself something of a phrasemaker. At one point, the youthful-appearing
Jamison, a Desert Storm vet, said disarmingly to the crowd, “I know I don’t
look old, but I am old.”

And he certainly got his fellow also-rans on his side when
he complained that “the media isn’t playing with a full deck” – meaning that he
and the other unsung names on the mayoral ballot weren’t getting their proper
share of attention.

The line from Jamison that got the whole audience going,
though, was this zinger, in response to the issue of gang activity and what to
do about it: “”We need to stop the gangs on top!” — a clear reference to
the rascals in charge of the governmental and business status quo.

Jamison was not done. He went on to insist, “Our government
has corrupted us in our city,” designating as particular problems “welfare” and
“babies having babies.” He got murmurs of approval from the conservatives in the
audience when he said, “We need mens [sic] to stand up to be mens. Stop leaving
everything to our women!”

Then there was Randy Cagle, who embraced past
traditions as well, calling, among other things, for a return to corporal
punishment in the schools. As he pointed out, “I got busted a lot of times at
school, but I’m not dead.”

Businessman Cagle, who has made every forum so far to which
all mayoral candidates have been invited, obviously relished the attention.
Often Cagle was gently corralled by a hint from LWV moderator Danielle
Schonbaum that he was about to exceed his allotted time limit.

On one such occasion, he said the obvious: “I could go on
forever. I love it.”

As candid and direct as that remark of Cagle’s was in its
own right, it had the ancillary virtue of prompting a rare understatement from
the famously voluble Willingham. “I’m like Cagle,” said the former commissioner.
“I can talk to you for three hours.”

Three hours was not quite what Willingham and fellow
top-tier candidates Morris and Chumney enjoyed during Monday night’s prime-time
broadcast forum on News Channel 3, WREG-TV, but the three of them managed a
compelling hour.

Observers’ opinions differed afterward as to who came out
ahead in a format that culminated with direct exchanges between the candidates
themselves.

But there were several discoveries to be had by the
viewers, who learned, among other things, that Chumney has been endorsed by the
AFL-CIO (she mentioned the fact four, maybe five times) and that Willingham, who
would seem to be about as white as white can be (ditto for his supporters),
considers himself the exponent, first and foremost, of “my base in the black
community,” which he helpfully enumerated as being in the vicinity of 13,000
voters.

Cynics may dispute it all they want, but the former
commissioner made it clear several times in his opening statement and thereafter
that he thinks of himself as the candidate of black Memphians. Willingham also
made the claim that his commission race of 2002, which resulted in an upset
victory over then incumbent Morris Fair, had been but a trial run for the
two mayoral races he’s run since (three, counting one for county mayor last
year).

He had run back then, Willingham confided, “to get my name
out.”

Whatever.

More to the point, he certainly got his name out Monday
night, sparring with the other two candidates (and occasionally, lightly, with
moderators Claudia Barr and Richard Ransom) and discoursing on
several of his pet schemes, two of which – converting the Fairgrounds into a
mini-Olympic village for international competitions and reserving desk jobs in
the Memphis Police Department for returning vets of the Iraq war – were
distinctly original.

In WREG’s own post-debate viewer poll, Willingham was, in
fact, running a strong second to Chumney.

As for the councilwoman, she had boasted on air – as she
has every right to – that such scientific polls as have been taken all position
her at the lead of the mayoral pack or tied for it. That was the basis for her
no-thank-you answer to commentator Norm Brewer‘s first question, asking
all the candidates if they shouldn’t back out, making room for a single
consensus contender to take on Herenton, who remains a not-quite-prohibitive
favorite.

(No one else volunteered for self-sacrifice, either.)

Though occasionally lapsing into some repetitive-sounding
spin, Chumney certainly managed to seize her share of the spotlight and to get
out large chunks of her crime plan (also available on her Web site) and other
proposals.

Morris, too, had his moments, staking out his claim to be a
racial uniter and unflappably fending off his opponents’ attacks on his record
at MLGW (Chumney on the alleged V.I.P. list he’d kept while head of the utility
and Willingham on what he – but not Morris, still a true believer – saw as the
folly of investing in Memphis Networx).

With some logic, Morris could claim afterwards that the
others’ persistent questioning of him meant that they must have regarded him as
“the frontrunner.” He wishes.

The bottom line is that all three candidates handled
themselves well and did themselves no damage, as each continued to vie for the
right to be regarded as the main contender to Herenton.

To Be Continued, you may be sure.

Tags AC Wharton, candidates, Carol Chumney, Dewayne A. Jones, Herenton, Herman Morris, John Willingham, laura davis aaron, mayoral race, Memphis Politics, Randy Cagle, Roosevelt Jamison

Politics Politics Feature

A C, in D.C., Says No

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date July 19, 2007

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, in Memphis on Monday night for a stop on his “Road to One America” tour, prepared to make his remarks at the MIFA Thrift Store on Vance, mayoral candidate Herman Morris, smiling and pressing the flesh, was working his way through the largely white and youngish crowd of some 300 — most presumably registered to vote in this year’s Memphis city election.

Morris, accompanied by his wife Brenda, couldn’t have seemed more carefree, and when someone said to him, “You must be the happiest man in Memphis right now,” Morris grinned. “Maybe the second happiest,” he corrected. “I’d have to see what A C looks like!”

Morris’ campaign had not exactly turned into duck soup as a result of Shelby County mayor A C Wharton‘s decision, revealed earlier Monday, not to seek the Memphis mayoralty. But Wharton’s abrupt rejection of a blue-ribbon “Draft A C” committee’s appeals had certainly kept Morris, and rival candidate Carol Chumney, for that matter, out of the dead-duck category.

And, as Morris’ quip indicated, it may also have relieved reluctant warrior Wharton of anxieties which, several reports had it, were abundant. Some of them concerned the prospect of a brutal, mauling mano-a-mano with his old friend and ally, Mayor Willie Herenton, an ex-pugilist never slow to throw campaign haymakers. Others had to do with intra-family matters.

And, finally, Horatio at the Gate was not exactly the right game for the laid-back county mayor — whose dapper, reassuring nature was one of his main attractions for those, including many influential members of the city’s business community, who had beseeched him to run against a once-popular city mayor whose ability to inspire confidence in the community at large may have run its course.

It had to be remembered, after all, that Wharton had been courted to run for this or that office many times over the years, but only once — in 2002, faced with an open county mayor’s seat and promised, then as now, with ample support from the Memphis business establishment — had he answered the call. A reelection race in 2006, against a largely nominal challenge by then county commissioner John Willingham, was a given.

Wharton’s native reticence was touched upon Monday by an admittedly “disheartened” Rev. Bill Adkins, who, along with the Rev. LaSimba Gray, had been one of two co-founders of the “Draft A C” movement. Repeating his confidence — and that of most observers, seemingly confirmed by a new poll — that Wharton would have been elected, Adkins acknowledged, “But he was always aggravated by having to make the decision. That’s how he is. He called us up when he first heard about the committee and said, ‘What are y’all doing?'”

The county mayor, still attending a mayors’ conference in Washington, D.C., released a lengthy, characteristically gracious statement later Monday. Noting that he had his reasons for demurring, Wharton said in part: “Some of these factors included family considerations, timing, and the impact on the community, but in the end, there was one factor that I simply could not ignore: I am in the right job at the right time to help Memphis the most.”

He went on: “The county mayor is the highest elected office in our region, representing the hopes and dreams of 912,000 people. Shelby County Government is one of the largest local governments in the entire country, and it is in the role as its mayor that I can have the most profound and lasting impact on Memphis. … Perhaps, it is the nature of county government that it operates quietly and often below the radar. But that fact of life makes it no less important.”

And so the dream harbored for so long by so many of an A C candidacy died — neither with a whimper nor with a bang. Rather, with a smile and a shrug.

• Meanwhile, the mayoral field appeared set. The same Commercial Appeal poll (done by Steve Ethridge, who had prepared all of the others so far, in whole or in part) that had showed the county mayor an easy winner had City Council member Chumney deadlocked with Herenton in a Wharton-less field, with Morris running third and Willingham (making his second race for city mayor) and former FedEx executive James Perkins well behind in the lower single digits.

Both Morris, who has enough of a bankroll to enlarge his beachhead with the voters as the campaign wears on, and Chumney took comfort from Monday’s news, and both released dutiful statements commending Wharton as they resolved to continue pressing their own efforts.

In any case, as Thursday’s filing deadline approached, much voter attention had turned to the rapidly growing roster of City Council candidates. The long-rumored decision by council mainstay Jack Sammons not to seek reelection was confirmed during the week by a Sammons announcement, and his Super-District 9, Position 3, seat was rapidly attracting comers — amomg them, prominent Democratic activist Desi Franklin and former interim legislators Shea Flinn and Mary Wilder.

The departure of incumbent Sammons, along with those previously announced, ensured that the post-election City Council will, like the County Commission that was elected in 2006, contain a majority of newly elected members.

With that prospect, the appetite among hopefuls was growing (see also Viewpoint, p. 17), and all 13 seats were likely to see some animated contests. Check the Flyer Web site for updates, and watch this space for continued analysis of the races.

• By the time this column is read, a winner will have been declared in Tuesday’s special election for state House District 89. After a post-primary period in which the race was largely absent from political radar screens, it began to blip again — mainly through the efforts of teacher/restaurateur Steve Edmundson, who had launched an independent write-in campaign as a challenge both to highly favored Democrat Jeannie Richardson and to Republican nominee Dave Wicker, still largely an unknown quantity.

Mindful that only 250 or so voters had taken advantage of early voting, Richadson’s cadres quickly ginned up some campaign events and a GOTV effort to counter both Edmundson and what they suspected might be a sandbagging, late-breaking Republican effort on Wicker’s behalf.

• Unless former Memphis school board member Michael Hooks Jr. holds to his resolve and stands trial for his role in the Tennessee Waltz saga and somehow overcomes, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office will shortly end up with a perfect record of convictions for the several defendants who have been indicted in the sting since May 2005.

That was the situation this week after Chattanooga state senator Ward Crutchfield pleaded guilty in federal court here last Thursday to accepting a “gratuity” (i.e., a bribe), and former Memphis state senator Kathryn Bowers followed suit on Monday.

Both Crutchfield and Bowers made an effort to appear at peace with the situation, having both reached the “acceptance” stage of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross‘ famous death cycle, and the diminutive Bowers, who freely acknowledged having done wrong in taking some $11,500 in inducements from undercover “E-Cycle” agents, was more successful.

On the way to her rendezvous with the media outside the federal building, Bowers limped a little. “It’s the shoe,” she said, pointing to a pair of new taupe-colored open-weave high-heeled shoes. She had dropped something on her foot on the 4th of July, “and it still hurts,” she said. “I’m only 4 feet 10, and when you’re that short, you’ve got to do something to help you stand tall.”

But the glummer and more taciturn Crutchfield had his moment of poise, too. Asked by a reporter what words he would have for his wife of some 50 years when he returned home to Chattanooga with his once lofty reputation in shreds, Crutchfield replied: “Hon, I’m home.”

Crutchfield will be sentenced on November 28th, Bowers on October 24th, both by trial judge Daniel Breen.

Tags AC Wharton, City Council, mayoral race, Memphis mayor, political, Politics, Willie Herenton

Opinion Viewpoint

Why the Mayor Will Lose

Post author By Marty Aussenberg
Post date July 12, 2007

John Branston (“City Beat,” July 5th issue) 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), which was substantially responsible for the transfer of power from Republicans to Democrats in last November’s congressional elections.

Just like the W. in the White House, W.W. Herenton has an Iraq. It’s called crime. Memphians are scandalized by an upsurge in violent crime in the Bluff City, a troubling trend that has placed Memphis 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 launched all manner of attacks on those he perceives as his enemies. The last unhinged politician who compiled an “enemies list” was Richard Nixon, and we know how well that turned out for him.

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, surreal 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, 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.

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 force that would assure Herenton’s loss would come when and if Shelby County mayor A C Wharton comes to his senses and realizes that the future of this city is far more important than his sense of loyalty to a man who is dragging down both Memphis and Shelby County.

I predict that 16 years of King Willie will be end up being enough for most voters in Memphis. What’s more, I think black voters are tired of being played by a mayor who has no problem, when it suits him, of cozying up to the same constituency of white businessmen he now accuses of turning on him. I predict they will see through his transparent tirades and turn him out of office.

Marty Aussenberg writes the “Gadfly” column on www.memphisflyer.com.

Tags AC Wharton, cronyism, mcs, Memphis mayor, Willie Herenton

Politics Politics Feature

Coming to Shove

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date July 12, 2007

As was noted here last week, momentum for a mayoral candidacy by Shelby County mayor A C Wharton — and pressure on that famously reluctant (or coy) official — has seriously intensified as the clock keeps on ticking toward next week’s filing deadline.

Things were patently coming to a head with the public emergence of a “Draft A C” movement led by, among others, the Revs. La Simba Gray and Bill Adkins. Despite Mayor Willie Herenton‘s attempted dismissal of the effort, and of the two African-American ministers as relatively unimportant figures motivated by “personal” or even mercenary reasons, the fact is that both had once been key members of Herenton’s political team.

Adkins especially was a major force in the epochal first race by Herenton in 1991, relentlessly proselyting for the then “consensus” black candidate on his daily radio show.

These days, neither Adkins nor Gray is regarded as necessarily “first tier” among African-American leaders, though Gray made a serious effort to become so last year in his sponsorship of forums designed to produce a single black candidate around whom other blacks might cohere.
No such figure materialized in a race ultimately won by then state senator Steve Cohen. But if Wharton, who agreed to meet with his newly energized suitors, ended up saying yes to their entreaties, there would be no need to look further to find consensus, and the resultant combination of African-American forces with a business community already avid for A C to run was bound to be a first-tier effort.

In famous lines by T.S. Eliot, the poet’s probable stand-in, J. Alfred Prufrock, opined, “I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be.” Well, A C was meant to be. And it has to be remembered that in the play Eliot was referencing, Hamlet does finally act.

Meanwhile, other mayoral candidates were increasingly making themselves available. Several hopefuls were scheduled to appear at a Tuesday night meeting of the Southeast Memphis Betterment Association at Asbury Methodist Church, including newcomer Randy Cagle and, er, oldcomer Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges.

Among the promised attendees generally acknowledged to be “serious” challengers were council member Carol Chumney, former MLGW head Herman Morris, and former Shelby County commissioner John Willingham.

Scheduled to make what would seem to be his first public appearance as a candidate for mayor was former FedEx executive Jim Perkins, who is the unknown quantity of the mayoral race so far. Perkins reportedly has a million dollars of his own money to spend on the race, and that fact alone has been enough to encourage speculation that he might figure significantly in the outcome.

Coincidentally, Tuesday happened also to be the deadline for candidates’ filing disclosures for the second quarter of the year, just ended. Preliminary indications have been that candidate Morris will show cash on hand in the six figures, with Chumney lagging behind, and Willingham pulling up the rear.

Meanwhile, Willingham is doing what he can to engender what, in our time, is rather quaintly called “free media” (i.e., news coverage).

At a recent meeting of the Southeast Shelby Republican Club at the Pickering Center in Germantown he used the club’s traditional “introduce-yourself” round asked of all guests by delivering what amounted to a campaign address that was standard Willingham.

Contained within it was a litany of the maverick former commissioner’s sworn foes — including old ones like establishment Republicans David Kustoff, Kemp Conrad, John Ryder, Maida Pearson, and Alan Crone, all former party chairmen who announced their support of his then potential 2006 commission opponent, Mike Carpenter, early enough to help persuade Willingham out of a reelection race and into one for county mayor.

But there were some new names, too — prominent among them Bruce Saltsman, former governor Don Sundquist‘s transportation commissioner, whom Willingham, without further explanation, held liable for the “shenanigans” of the now suspect FedExForum deal. And the former commissioner intimated he knew of dark deeds committed by some well-known developers.
But all of this would definitely play second or even third feature to the potential restaging, right here in River City, of Shakespeare’s most famous play.

Tags AC Wharton, Bill Adkins, Carol Chumney, Election, Herman Morris, John Willingham, La Simba Gray, Mayor, political, Politics, Willie Herenton

Politics Politics Feature

One Mayor’s In

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date July 5, 2007

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Willie Herenton made it official Tuesday. At the stroke of noon — surrounded by a medley of supporters, reporters, and the curious throngs that only a longtime officeholder of his stature (and none of his opponents so far) can command, a smiling mayor showed up at the Election Commission, wrote out his check, turned in his reelection petition, acknowledged his supporters, and named his adversaries.

In no particular order, they were the media, the power establishment, assorted plotters and schemers, and almost as an afterthought, his declared ballot opponents. Herenton was asked if he thought that any “major” opponents were yet to declare. (That was code for his longtime friend and governmental counterpart, Shelby County mayor A C Wharton.) “It doesn’t matter,” he boomed out, as a surrounding crowd cheered his confident declaration.

And it may not matter. But there is a general feeling now, with two weeks to go before the July 19th filing deadline, that the best bet — some think the only bet — to turn the mayor back from gaining a fifth four-year term is Wharton and that the county mayor is running out of temporizing time.

It seems clear that he must in very short order either declare his candidacy, risking an old friendship with the man whose campaigns he has more than once been the titular manager of, or make an unambiguous statement renouncing any possible shadow of ambition to move his mayoral chair across the downtown government mall to City Hall.

What is known is that Wharton has been tempted to run, but that, besides his native reluctance and his loyalty to Herenton, he fears a bitter campaign in which he ends up being mauled by his old friend, a former pugilist who has never been prone to pull any punches — in the ring or out.

It is further known that Wharton — or someone acting on his behalf — has researched various questions of governmental protocol, including the key one of whether he could run for one mayorship while occupying the other or even hold both offices at once.

Meanwhile, the rest of the field went on doing its collective thing:

Earlier in the week, former MLGW head Herman Morris perceptibly stepped up his schedule, appearing at a meet-and-greet on Wednesday, followed by a fund-raiser before an audience of lawyers on Thursday.

At the latter event, held at the University of Memphis-area Holiday Inn on Central, Morris pointedly condemned political appeals to “racial divisiveness,” an apparent reference to what many observers saw as a central element of Herenton’s now famous “blackmail plot” press conference.

It is now clear that Morris and his supporters are staking their hopes on his prospects of appealing to both black and white voters and thereby becoming the legitimate default candidate for those seeking an alternative to a continuation of Herenton’s tenure.

Jackson Baker

Mayor Herenton

As the leader in early mayoral polling, City Council member Carol Chumney, of course, wasn’t conceding anything. She too accelerated her campaigning over the last week, following up a Monday-night appearance before the Germantown Democrats with some extended shmoozing at Thursday night’s weekly “Drinking Liberally” event, held at the Cooper-Young bistro Dish.

Finally, on Saturday night, Chumney invited supporters to the Memphis Showboat for what she called a “kickoff” of her campaign. (For once, given the venue, the term “launch” might have been more appropriate.)

Chumney read a lengthy statement in which she noted the panoply of reformist positions and independent stances that have gained her a substantial following. Especially prominent in her audience Saturday night were a group of environmental activists.

Nor was former Shelby County commissioner John Willingham inactive. Appearing at Tuesday night’s meeting of the East Shelby Republican Club at the Pickering Center in Germantown, Willingham made the most of a brief cameo appearance before the main address by state representative Brian Kelsey, espousing a disdain for the city’s “power elite” that may have transcended even Herenton’s in its intensity.

Of James Perkins, the retired FedEx executive who is reputed to have a million dollars to load into a campaign, not much is yet known. His campaign so far remains invisible, and, to the electorate at large, so does he.

The fact remains: In the field as constituted so far, only Willie Herenton is a creature of genuine sturm und drang. Only he has demonstrated the dramatic potency that, beyond all issues and for better or for worse, can motivate a mass electorate.

What happens if Wharton does get in? Chumney insists that she will remain in the race and eschew a return to the District 5 City Council position, which three candidates — Jim Strickland, Dee Parkinson, and Bob Schreiber — now seek. Morris insists that he raised enough money and support to go the distance, and no one doubts that Willingham will stay the course.

What the other candidates — or their representatives — all say is that they have displayed a resourcefulness that the county mayor has not. “It’s easy enough for him to just say no. Why doesn’t he?” is a common refrain. The answer to that, of course, is that he may yet give the alternative answer.

• A new physical principle has been discovered about the known universe, or at least about that corner of it occupied by the Shelby County Democratic Party. It is this: That the likes of Richard Fields can be gotten rid of — perhaps permanently — but longtime gadfly Del Gill is irrepressible and will return again and again — perhaps till the end of time.

Fields, accused by Mayor Herenton of being ringleader of a “blackmail plot” aimed at deposing the mayor, was the subject of two votes at last Thursday night’s monthly meeting of the local Democrats’ executive committee. First, his resignation from the committee — tendered in a letter to party chairman Keith Norman in which Fields blamed his departure on complications arising from “my present investigation of problems in Memphis” — was accepted by a 36-0 vote.

That vote, however, came only after Gill — yes, Gill — tried to move for Fields’ expulsion and was talked by Norman into tacking that motion on to the acceptance motion as a second stage. The reason: As Norman explained it, only the state party could rule on an expulsion; hence, Fields’ resignation had to be accepted first, lest some discovered technicality bind him forever to the committee, and to the party.

And that, Norman explained, was what nobody wanted. The chairman opined that “we should never have elected him back on in the first place” after Fields was forced off an earlier version of the committee in 2006 for working with Republican lawyers to overturn the election of Democrat Ophelia Ford to the state Senate.

Norman allowed himself some additional rhetoric to the effect that Fields was best gone forever — a point that Gill and others thought had been incorporated into the resolution of expulsion, which passed 27-6. Both Norman and party secretary David Holt said afterward, however, that the word “permanently” — heard frequently in discussion on Gill’s motion — was not involved in the final vote. The point may be moot; it is hard to imagine a third coming for Fields.

The real miracle was the return to the committee of Gill, who has his own detractors. That resurrection occurred when Gill, a perennial member who was not, however, elected at this year’s party convention, got nominated by the newly formed Memphis Democratic Club as its representative on the executive committee.

The Memphis Democratic Club is chaired by Jay Bailey, the lawyer who was defeated by Norman for the party chairmanship, and numbers other dissidents among its members.

Also returned to the committee was another longtime maverick, Bill Larsha, who was accepted as the representative of yet another newly formed dissident club.

• Even as all parties to the County Commission’s Juvenile Court controversy await the state Supreme Court’s verdict on whether it will adjudge the legality of the commission’s vote for a second judgeship, the commission itself has established an oversight committee for the court. Its chair? First-term member Henri Brooks.

Tags 'plot', AC Wharton, Carol Chumney, conspiracy, Mayor Herenton, political, Politics, richard fields

Politics Politics Feature

So What Is County Mayor Wharton Raising Money For?

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date June 19, 2007

On Wednesday of this week, pol-watchers in these parts will be up against it trying to keep up with big-time local events. First, there is the long-planned fundraiser at U of M basketball coach John Calipari’s manse for city council candidate Jim Strickland. Almost simultaneously, there is mayoral candidate Herman Morris’ headquarters opening at 1835 Union Avenue.

And finally there is a $500-a-head fundraiser for Shelby County mayor A C Wharton at the Racquet Club. Then there’s…

Wait a minute! It’s understandable why candidate Strickland, who has at least one opponent and may get more before next month’s filing deadline, needs a fundraiser. And any self-respecting candidate for mayor has to have a headquarters (though Morris, whose HQ has been broken into and robbed already, even before its formal opening, may have second thoughts about that.

But why does Mayor Wharton, who possesses no known campaign debt from his prior two election efforts and who is enjoined by law from running for a third term, need a big-ticket fundraiser? Granted, political eminences (and A C is certainly that) are called upon from time to time to keep up appearances by staging events or sending flowers and even to lend a hand to up-and-coming hopefuls, but is there an ulterior purpose to this putting the arm on big donors?

Given the events of the last week in the, 2007 Political Conspiracy, er, season, and the persistent rumors that Wharton is still meditating on a possible city mayor’s race, is there an even more practical and immediate reason for the county mayor’s fundraiser? Hmmmm.

–J.B.

Tags AC Wharton, fundraising, Mayor, political, Politics

Politics Politics Feature

A C on Charter Change

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date May 24, 2007

If Shelby County mayor A C Wharton had his way, he’d appoint most of the constitutional county officers whose status is now judicially uncertain and allow the popular election of the assessor and sheriff, though he’d want to strip away the independent budget control now enjoyed by the sheriff.

The county mayor made his personal preferences clear Friday in an interview with the Flyer, after attending a noon session of the Urban School Leadership Conference at the city’s Teaching and Learning Academy on Union Avenue.

Five currently elected county offices had their status made flexible by a state Supreme Court ruling earlier this year in a Knox County case. Since then, Wharton, county commission members, and other officials have been reviewing the status of these positions for possible redefinition under the county charter.

Besides the sheriff and assessor, the positions in legal limbo are those of trustee, county clerk, and county register.

“I do think there are some offices that are largely business-type offices that should be appointed,” the mayor said. Those, he indicated, were the county clerk, the register, and probably the trustee, though Wharton remains undecided about the latter.

Eliminate sheriff’s budget control

“I feel very frankly that the sheriff ought to be elected and answer to the wishes of the people. And the assessor … I also think the individual in that slot ought to be completely immune from political pressure,” the mayor said.

On a key issue affecting the sheriff’s fiscal independence, however, Wharton demurred. “I think he ought to be elected under the charter, not under the state constitution,” Wharton said. Did that mean that the budgetary control currently enjoyed by the sheriff should be transferred to the central county administration? “That’s correct,” the mayor answered.

“It’s not the multiplicity of the positions per se that makes it difficult to head the county in one direction,” he elaborated. “It’s just the plain business functions — it’s where we bank, where we invest, how many people we hire. When you have seven or eight people trying to make those decisions, it’s very difficult.”

In the case of the trustee, those issues have been acute in the recent past, Wharton feels — a factor in his ambivalence about the position. “I’m not fully decided on that, but I do think more of the functions ought to be more clearly delineated in the charter and not have to rely on the state law. See, that’s what happens now: The trustee says, ‘I’m not a county officer, and I don’t have to go through your purchasing procedure, and I don’t have to do this, and if you don’t give me enough positions, I can sue you.”

Conceivably, the trustee’s position could remain elective, the mayor said, but “when it comes down to the housekeeping functions, those ought to come under the charter, just like everything else.”

“Basically office-type positions“

Summing up: “I’m not completely decided on the trustee. I’m inclined to believe that ought to be an appointive position. With the assessor, I am decided that should be an elective position; the sheriff I think ought to be [elective]. But again, those business functions, you don’t have that in city governments around the state, and they function quite well. Those positions are basically office-type positions.”

Ideally, as Wharton sees it, the mayor’s office would be responsible for hiring the county clerk and register and likely the trustee, with the county commission responsible for confirming the appointments.

Any change in the county charter would require an amendment to be voted on by popular referendum. It could be placed on a Shelby County ballot by citizen petition, by action of the county commission, or possibly through the aegis of a charter review panel.

• The Democratic primary race for the vacant state House seat has heated up (again) with candidate Kevin Gallagher‘s charge that only he is a longtime resident of District 89. Opponent Jeanne Richardson counters that Gallagher’s flyer mail-out on the subject is loaded with inaccuracies. Meanwhile, the dangerous-looking guy on the flyer is apparently just a stock photo Gallagher (or a surrogate) got by Googling “angry citizen.” (Richardson hopes people think it’s Gallagher himself.)

Among the things that Gallagher charges in the flyer that went out late last week are that he owns his home in the district while Richardson does not, that he managed former state senator Steve Cohen‘s successful 2006 congressional campaign while Richardson “could not vote for Steve Cohen for state Senate” because she lived outside the district, and that for similar reasons she was never able to vote for former District 89 representatives Beverly Marrero or Carol Chumney.

Says Richardson: “The only thing that’s completely accurate is that I wasn’t able to vote for Beverly Marrero, whom I support, however.” She insisted that while she lived for some years with a former husband on Mud Island, she rented her current residence in District 89 back in Februrary, lives there (in the Evergreen Historical District), and intends to buy the house.

Richardson says further that she lived at three prior District 89 addresses before moving to Mud Island in 1990 (on Pope, Crenshaw, and North Drive) and that she indeed voted for Cohen for the state Senate during that time frame and not only voted for Chumney (in 1990) but hosted a fundraiser for her in the district that year.

Gallagher’s flyer notes that the house Richardson now rents is owned by her campaign treasurer, Amanda McEachran. Richardson concedes the point but says she moved there (with family members) before she made up her mind to run (“It was even before Beverly won her state Senate race [for District 30], and I couldn’t have made plans to run by then”). She also says that she is endeavoring to buy the house and that she is completing the sale of her former Mud Island residence.

For his part, Gallagher contends he belongs to “the third generation of Gallaghers to live in this district and is raising the fourth generation” in it. His flyer is headed “Know the Facts! Only One Democrat in the Race for State Representative is Actually From the District.”

For the last day or two, both he and Richardson have been making their rounds while packing folders with papers supporting their respective claims. The to-do involving residence recalls a similar issue raised by Marrero in 2004, when she won her own special election for District 89 to succeed Chumney, who had been elected to the City Council. In her primary against opponent Jeff Sullivan, she charged that Sullivan had voted from a district residence he had not yet moved into.

Richardson and Gallagher are generally conceded to be running neck-and-neck in the Democratic primary. Each can claim impressive endorsements: Richardson boasts Marrero and Chumney, while Gallagher has the public support of Representative Cohen and county commissioner Deidre Malone.

Mayoral candidates Morris, Willingham in Mini-Battle

Even as political adepts and voters alike begin to express an interest in broadening the current field for mayor, two aspirants for the job of Memphis’ chief executive are engaged in a mini-competition of sorts for the official favor of the local Republican Party.

Former MLGW head Herman Morris and ex-county commissioner John Willingham were scheduled for a joint appearance this week before the East Shelby Republican Club, an influential local organization in the GOP matrix.

Morris, who is trying to hit some imagined political middle (calling himself both a “lower-case” Republican and a “lower-case” Democrat), has Republican establishmentarian John Ryder as a campaign chairman. Willingham is a longtime party member, though he has almost always been on the maverick side of GOP controversies and in his several previous races has most often been denied the party’s imprimatur.

Both are probably in for a disappointment. County Republican chairman Bill Giannini told a meeting of the monthly Dutch Treat Luncheon Saturday that Morris had “no chance” of being endorsed and, while he was not so explicit about Willingham, expressed his opinion that the former commissioner had no chance to win and should exit the race. After the meeting, Giannini told the Flyer he did not think the local party should endorse anyone.

(Some Democratic backers of Morris, meanwhile, believe his interest in a Republican endorsement, whether he gets it or not, would diminish, not enhance, his chances.)

Despite recent polls showing City Council member Carol Chumney leading incumbent mayor Willie Herenton and the rest of the declared field, including FedEx executive Jim Perkins, the current consensus among political observers seems to favor the mayor’s chances in October.

But almost everybody thinks that could change with new arrivals in the field — notably Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, who is widely considered a likely winner if he chose to run. — JB

Tags AC Wharton, appointed officials, political, Politics