What? You haven't seen it? All right, go here and look at it, then go to the CA article and look at the link to Steve Ethridge's video about the poll. Go on, I'll wait.
OK, I know Carol took a hit, a solid one, but not a fatal one, not by a longshot. I'd send the condolence cards to Herman first, who is in single digits if Wharton is in, but only at 12% if AC DOESN'T get in. If you read the numbers carefully, and I hope that you do, you will notice that between April, when the first poll came out, and July 8-10 when the poll was taken, Carol lost 12% of her white numbers and AC picked up 16 %.
I believe that was because people really took seriously the idea that AC would run, and he is, after all, the County's most popular political figure by a wide margin.
Now, doesn't it strike you as odd that the CA would decide to do this poll right at the same time as www.draftac.com showed up and all this hoopla of will he/won't he took off? I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.......
I also am going to suggest something else here. I now believe it's not just the developers who are pushing AC to run. There's someone who has a real hope that someone will become Mayor of Memphis that will move this city forward without obsessing too much about the past, especially the most recent past. Someone who will try to fix the problems without mentioning the fellow who helped cause them.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. They had dinner the other night for a reason. All I'm saying is that you should not be surprised if one day this week, prior to Thursday, that there would be a press conference where the two old friends, the Mayors of Memphis and Shelby County, will stride out arm in arm and announce that four terms is enough, and that Mayor Herenton is going to get out and ask us to vote for his friend AC Wharton to succeed him.
Herenton really doesn't want to keep going, but I suspect he would rather eat rusty nails than turn the city over to Chumney or Morris. This way he goes out on his own terms, turning the city over to someone he trusts not to piss on his legacy.
His legacy is that he has done more for Downtown than any other mayor of Memphis, and I would be hard-pressed to dispute that. The Poplar Corridor and Codova have done well, too.
However, the irony of all of this is that the poorest parts of town, which also have higher concentrations of African-Americans, have suffered with job losses, higher crime, higher drug use, and higher poverty. That is part of his legacy, too, like it or not.
If this happens, I also expect Herman Morris to get out, maybe to run for a Super District seat. However, while I can't speak for Carol, let me just say that I think it would be more likely for me to become a swimsuit model than for Carol to exit the Mayor's race. She knows this is about something bigger than herself, it's about giving people who AREN'T developers, who AREN'T trying to get a contract with the city, a real voice at City Hall. She's there to work for EVERYONE.
And what if Wharton gets in and Herenton stays in? Prepare for an uglier race than last year's 9th District Democratic Primary.
If AC stays out??? Carol and Mayor Herenton are dead even, and it will be a whole lot of fun!
2 comments:
If AC gets in, he wins 48 to WW's 30 to Carol's 20 to Morris' the rest. If WW leaves, AC beats Carol 59 to 35 with Morris getting the rest. If AC stays put, toss-up with WW and Carol getting 51 to 47 either way. It may depend, in that scenario, on the size and interest of the white vote. Carol will probably get most of it, but it has to be large enough to enable her share of the black vote to be around 35 to 40 percent. Sort of a reverse microcosm of a white southern Democrat running statewide.
"it would be more likely for me to become a swimsuit model than for Carol to exit the Mayor's race"
Almost too evocative [grin].
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