There are various theories as to how aware Shelby County Commission
chair Deidre Malone was before Monday’s commission meeting of
her pending defeat for a second straight chairmanship bid, but the
weight of the evidence is that she knew the vote was slated to go
against her.
Two key players — Democrats Sidney Chism and Steve
Mulroy — had each informed Malone explicitly in advance that
they could not support her desire to buck the tradition of annually
alternating the chairmanship by party and by person. In the mode of any
number of political, civic, and business organizations, the vice chair
for a given year on the commission has been expected to accede to the
chairmanship.
That usually happens routinely and without incident. It did so a
year ago, when Malone, a Democrat who was then serving as vice chair,
took over the commission reins from David Lillard, the outgoing
Republican chairman. And Joyce Avery, this year’s Republican
vice chair, had every expectation of a similarly seamless
accession.
For whatever reason — prodding from Shelby County Democratic
chairman Van Turner, as some maintained, or from Democratic
commissioner Matt Kuhn (who nominated Malone on Monday) or her
own ambition or even (as she put it Monday) her desire to follow
through on initiatives under way on the commission — Malone
allowed her name to be put up against that of Avery for a one-on-one
showdown.
It was a non-starter for reasons outlined by the Flyer online
before the vote took place.
Chism had been explicit, both publicly and to Malone in private: He
could not support what he saw as her bid to put herself in line to
become mayor should current county mayor A C Wharton win this
year’s special election for Memphis mayor. Inasmuch as a victorious
Wharton would have to resign to become the city mayor, whoever happened
to be serving as commission chairman would automatically accede to the
mayoralty for 45 days.
Longtime political broker Chism is a committed supporter of
Harold Byrd, the Bartlett banker who has indicated that he, too,
like Malone, will seek the Democratic nomination for Shelby County
mayor in 2010.
Mulroy’s position was somewhat more complicated but similar: He too
was disinclined, as he said, to create a situation favoring one
Democrat over another in next year’s county mayor race. And, having
voted in February with the other Democrats to replace Republican
Lillard (who had become Tennessee secretary of state) with Democrat
Kuhn, Mulroy was loath to breach commission tradition a second time
— especially since there would be no immediate alteration of the
commission’s current 8-5 partisan lineup favoring the Democrats.
Importantly, he too had let Malone know in advance that she could
not count on his vote. Both he and Chism would be casting their votes
for Avery, a Republican who had several times proved herself amenable
to making common cause with Democrats and, as a term-limited
commissioner, had only one year left to experience the chairmanship of
the body.
Given the fact that Avery could depend on the votes of all five
commission Republicans (including her own), those two Democratic
crossover votes doomed Malone’s bid in advance. Speculation afterward
was that she must have believed that either Chism or Mulroy would
change their plans if she, a fellow Democrat, came within a single vote
of winning on the first ballot. That, or she was following through on a
commitment to the Democratic Party at large to make the effort.
In any case, Malone didn’t come close on the first ballot, which
made her defeat so obvious that those Democrats who had pledged to her
decided to pass — giving Avery a de facto vote of
acclamation.
The upshot of all this was not as dramatic as another casting aside
of bipartisan tradition might have been, though, as both Malone and
Mulroy pointed out, that tradition — of alternating chairmanships
and seating same-party members in commission vacancies — dates
back only about 15 years to the time when commission elections became
partisan affairs, involving party primaries followed by a general
election.
But some hard feelings will endure. Chairman-to-be Avery made it
clear on Monday that she was incensed at what she regarded as
patronizing comments made about her in discussion before the vote by
Malone and by Henri Brooks, a Malone supporter.
For that matter, Brooks may nurse resentment against those fellow
Democrats — including Joe Ford and Mulroy — who
opted for Chism rather than herself in a second key vote, that for vice
chairman, which narrowly ended in Chism’s favor, 7-6. (By contrast, she
bestowed a public hug on Mike Carpenter, who broke ranks with
fellow Republicans to cast his vote for her.)
And Chism, who as newly elected vice chair stands in line to become
commisson chairman a year from now, may face repercussions from his
fellow Democrats, most of whom also voted for Brooks, and some of whom
privately raised an eyebrow about what they saw as his deal-making with
the commission’s Republicans to get their vote.
• These are the most obvious lessons from last Thursday’s first
encounter of rival mayoral candidates at a forum sponsored by the
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC).
1) Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, the odds-on favorite going into
what is still expected to be a fall special election, will play
hard-to-get. He declined an invitation to the ABC’s luncheon affair,
held at the University of Memphis Holiday Inn on Central Avenue,
averring that it was “inconsistent” with his election strategy to
appear.
In other words, Wharton had no intention of conferring a semblance
of equality on his opponents or giving them so direct a chance to score
points on him and catch up.
2) By contrast, the status and strategy of City Council chairman
Myron Lowery, another name candidate absent from the forum, were more
puzzling, unless one accepted at face value Lowery’s contention that he
had a prior commitment to attend a National League of Cities event in
Denver on Thursday.
3) Charles Carpenter, the municipal-finance lawyer and five-time
director of Herenton’s mayoral campaigns, used the forum — which
followed close upon Carpenter’s official announcement event Thursday
morning — to stress that he had hands-on experience with city
projects (notably, FedExForum) and was independent of Herenton, despite
their long professional and personal association.
He told the ABC audience: “My role was that of an adviser. He
[Herenton] was CEO, and he made the decisions. I could tell him ‘go
right,’ and he’d say, ‘Thank you. I’m going left.’ It will be different
with a Carpenter administration. I’ll be making the decisions.”
4) Carol Chumney, the former council member and state representative
who ran second to Herenton in 2007, signaled at Thursday’s forum that
she would attempt a reprise of her strategy of two years ago —
emphasizing her 17 years of experience in public office and her
commitment to general “change” as an overriding goal.
Chumney promised, “I won’t give lip service to ethics. I’ll apply it
to myself,” and asserted she had the “brains, heart, and guts” to do
the job for the city of Memphis.
5) Kemp Conrad, the entrepreneur and first-term councilman who
served a term as chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party, made
sure his presumably conservative audience was aware of his credentials,
speaking a lingo (condemning the city’s “bureaucracy” and proclaiming
“God bless the free market”) that he might have assumed would resound
with builders and contractors.
Noting the high incidence of crime (as had Chumney), Conrad named
public safety as a major concern.
6) Jim Strickland, the (conspicuously willing) subject of a mayoral
draft movement, sounded what he clearly intends to be a major theme in
an energized but uphill campaign against presumed leader Wharton and
the long-established Lowery. “We cannot change Memphis for the next
generation with leaders from the last generation.”
Strickland gained traction two months ago after issuing his own
budget proposal, with cuts in administrative salaries and a modest tax
decrease.
7) Last but not least, as they say, was the Rev. Kenneth Whalum
Jr., pastor of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church and a firebrand member
of the city school board. Whalum might have trouble getting the votes
of the predominantly conservative ABC members, but there was no doubt
that he had them enraptured with his performer’s brio and uninhibited
observations.
Whalum, who reminded the audience early and often that he had polled
83,939 votes “citywide” in getting elected to the school board, got his
most animated reaction from the crowd when he did an impression of
Lowery as an intense, nervous, arm-waving mayor pro tem —
“excited, almost uncontrollably” at the prospect of becoming mayor.
8) Jerry Lawler, the wrestler-commentator who announced his second
race for mayor during the week, was absent and apparently had not been
on the guest list — his status in host-moderator Mike Carpenter’s
eyes indicated by Carpenter’s assertion to the audience that only
“serious” candidates had been invited.
Go here to see more “Political Beat Blog” stories.
