I am very happy that my friend and Mayor, Jim Strickland was overwhelmingly re elected with 62.1 percent of the vote.
Why, some of you will ask, didn't you vote for a real progressive? And then referred me to the third-place finisher, the County Commissioner who could not even wait to finish ONE YEAR in office before she ran for City Mayor. I would have written in Pamela Moses before I would ever vote for Tami Sawyer, now or in the future.
I have lived in Memphis, Tennessee since June 17, 1972. I have lived under Wyeth Chandler, J, O, Patterson, Wallace Madewell, Dick Hackett, Willie Herenton, Myron Lowery, AC Wharton, and the gentleman who will now serve us through 2023, Jim Strickland.
ONLY ONE MAYOR has used the term Black Lives Matter in the way it was meant to be used, for real and unironically. ONLY ONE MAYOR has attended Pride in Memphis and marched in the parade and hired a LGBTQIA Liaison (by the way, that Liaison does a damn fine job!). ONLY ONE WHITE MAYOR has ever, to my knowledge, been a life member of the NAACP. ONLY ONE MAYOR has, to my knowledge, served as the Chair of the Shelby County Democratic Party.
And that is the fellow who got 62.1% of the vote of the city tonight: JIM STRICKLAND. Do I agree with him on everything? Of course not. When I have disagreed with him in the past (and I used to call him up when he was my Councilman), he would hear me out and then explain why he disagreed. He would not placate me, which is one of the reasons he won four years ago.
Tami Sawyer is still butthurt that she didn't get credit for the statues coming down. I think the voters of the city, if they had ANY question about that, settled that this evening. He had started working on that while he was on the Council, about the time you were bragging about outing one of your teachers at St. Mary's. I don't think you had many LGBTQIA voters left by the time your 6,666 voters were counted. (No, I am not making that up.) That adds up to 6.9%, single digits, as I had forecast some weeks ago.
You know who understands that we still have a long way to go when it comes to income inequality? JIM STRICKLAND. Everything that you claim to want, Commissioner, they have been working on since he took office in 2016. Just what do you think would have happened if you had gotten elected and attempted to do what you said you would do? Look at whom we have in the General Assembly from outside Shelby and Davidson Counties, do you really think they would let you do that? They would be salivating to crush a Mayor who is a woman of color, and by the time you won in the courts your term would be up and people here would be tired of the drama.
You have slandered our Mayor for the last three years, and the voters told you tonight what they think about that. Your base is not North or South Memphis, Frayser or Raleigh, Whitehaven or Hickory Hill. It is the western end of the Poplar Corridor, it's made up of cranky old Midtowners. You got mad about Jackson Baker mentioning that in the Memphis Magazine story, but it is the TRUTH. It is time to pay attention to the people of Commission District 7, Commissioner. Whoever talked you into running against a popular Mayor did you no favors.
Most of all, if you had stuck to your plan of getting elected and then re-elected to the Commission and THEN running for Mayor in 2023, you would have been in a better position to establish yourself legislatively, raise the funding necessary to get elected, and, in all seriousness, had time to clean up your social media. After tonight, who knows? Sure, you say you are going to keep doing what you have been doing, but if only 7% are listening...............
Enough, it is time to address the media coverage, in particular, the Commercial Appeal, who especially on Election Day had Daniel Connolly and Sarah Macaraeg talking to every voter who apparently had decided THAT VERY DAY to vote for the Commissioner. Well, CA, way to play to 7% of the voting populace! That should help with subscriptions! Oy. Jackson Baker GOT IT RIGHT. Otis Sanford GOT IT RIGHT. Bill Dries GOT IT RIGHT. And to be fair, Ryan Poe GOT IT RIGHT in Election Day's 901 column.
I also understand that, especially with the CA, they wanted to portray the race as being closer than it ever really was, in order to get clicks and subscriptions. (NOTE: Until someone local owns the CA, I am not subscribing. I feel bad for the good people who write there, but I cannot subsidize what Gannett and their new partner is doing to the paper and the website, which is, and has been, hideous).
It will be fascinating to see how the Mayor is covered by the CA from this point forward, considering that the Millennials could not be bothered to show up to vote. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. Meanwhile, old farts like me will always vote every election!! I am going to soak all this in and enjoy every moment of this overwhelming victory. By the way, if you still don’t understand why Jim won, go read Poe’s 901 from today (Friday). If that doesn’t explain it, I can’t help you! Enjoy your weekend, I sure will.
