Pulling the Punches But plenty of them were thrown --and landed -- in this week's second mayoral forum. by JACKSON BAKER wo weeks after a mayoral-candidate forum in which Mayor Willie Herenton and former U.S. Representative Harold Ford Sr. engaged in a verbal slugfest -- while brother Joe Ford largely stood aside -- Round Two was held Monday night with thicker padding added to soften the blows. The former congressman was absent this time, leaving the battle to his brother, city council chairman Ford, who is regarded as Herenton's chief challenger in the 16-member mayoral race. At the prompting of one audience member during the forum at Mt. Olive C.M.E. Cathedral downtown, Herenton and Ford shook hands, after which the mayor, a onetime Golden Glove boxing champion, recalled of those days, "We used to shake hands, and then we'd come out fighting." Which is to say, however cushioned the combat might have been Monday night, it got to be fairly bruising all the same. Councilman Ford was not the mayor's only antagonist, however. Virtually all of the seven challengers on hand took shots at Herenton. One of them, and perhaps the chief beneficiary of the evening, was County Commission chairman Shep Wilbun, a rival to both Herenton and Ford in the black community, who responded, "I am that candidate" to the mayor's prior declaration that, "If there's a better candidate to run for mayor, he's not a candidate at this time." Wilbun, who came with a vocal claque that sounded at times almost as animated as Herenton's, often took the battle to the mayor, contending that Herenton had left too much undone in areas such as housing and crime control and that he had not been helpful when Wilbun and other black commissioners had virtually gone "on strike" three years ago in defense of various objectives important to the inner city. Ford hammered away at alleged mayoral inaction, too, contending that his quarrel with Herenton was not personal but that the mayor had done little to alleviate the city's poverty or its educational and crime problems. Herenton pulled few punches in responding, referring once to "cheap politicians" and chiding his opponents for what he said was their ignorance of city affairs. He suggested that Ford was inclined to be "over-generous," that the councilman's agenda would "bankrupt" the city. The mayor also boasted that, as an "old warrior," he had fought virtually alone during the 1997 battle over "Toy Town" incorporation legislation. "They don't understand what the mayor's job is all about" was typical of Herenton's verbal jabs Monday night. Among the other contenders, former council member Mary Rose McCormick quipped that "the best man for the job in this case is a woman" and proposed action on a number of problems, including that of Memphis' elderly population, 71 percent of whom lived in poverty-level conditions, she said. "Memphis has never received its fair share of state support for the elderly," she said, promising to go after such aid and to promote ways of allowing the indigent elderly to live outside nursing homes. Contenders Jack McNeil and Pete Sisson, white like McCormick, had their moments but seemed at times separated from the predominantly African-American audience by a culture gap. Former Shelby County Commissioner Sisson's suggestions that "boot camps" were needed for juvenile offenders and his suggestion that Memphians had become less safe under Herenton drew a fairly chilly response, as did McNeil's proposals for a "glass hotel" honoring Elvis Presley. (McNeil did manage to charm the audience somewhat with his well-sung version of "Precious Lord, Take My Hand," but much of that impression may have been offset by his over-ethnic attempt to mimic a young black school dropout.) Two largely unheralded African-American candidates, C.J. Cochran and Charles Yates, performed creditably, with Yates getting something of a crowd reaction from his animated pronouncement that he was using this year's mayoral race as a springboard for an ultimate bid for the presidency. * Councilman Ford scheduled a press conference Tuesday to announce his new Web site (www.fordformayor.com) and to make the point, in response to an altercation involving his brother, State Senator John Ford, and a police officer at the airport that no one should be regarded as "above the law." This weekend Ford's campaign reportedly will put out some 25,000 yard signs. * Wilbun's momentum at Mt. Olive Monday night may have carried over from the strong impression he made last week when, on the day that the Shelby County Commission voted 9 to 3 for a 72-cent property tax increase, the chairman had denounced FedEx for the corporation's massive last-minute effort to lobby against an increase of that size. "I am angry and appalled," said Wilbun, and it was generally agreed by other commission members that FedEx had caused a backlash on the commission by the company's effort, as Wilbun put it, to "tell us what we ought to approve." Commenting on tax breaks extended to FedEx, Wilbun said, "It is precisely because we have been as generous in working with them as we have that $74 million worth of [tax] benefits have been extended to them. But for that, we might not be at this crossroads today." The commission's actions on Monday in settling the long-standing issue of pay raises for jailers and sheriff's deputies by extending significant "personal safety allowances" furthered the image of a chairman in control, though Wilbun sounded at times apologetic for having had to raise taxes during his remarks Monday night. * City councilman Jerome Rubin, whose re-electon bid in District 3 (Whitehaven) is being stoutly challenged by School Board member TaJuan Stout-Mitchell, is holding his campaign opener from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, at 4715 Elvis Presley Boulevard. Rubin says he has raised more than $35,000 to date for his campaign. He is being assisted by veteran political consultant Fred Dorse. * Last week's sweeping victory of Bill Purcell in Nashville's mayoral race (see box) made it 3-for-3 for Memphian Matt Kuhn, who managed Purcell's effort. Kuhn had previously directed successful races for U.S. Rep. John Tanner of Tennessee's 8th District and U.S. Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina. The Nashville Precedent Among the possible lessons to be learned from last week's city election in Nashville: (1) Things can change in one hell of a hurry; and (2) Yesterday's polls may be of little use in predicting tomorrow's outcome. Both points were driven home by the overwhelming victory of former state House of Representatives majority leader Bill Purcell over a field including the favored former mayor Dick Fulton, vice mayor Jay West, and a handful of no-names. Purcell fell just short of an absolute majority and had a 2-to-1 edge over each of his major opponents. Under the circumstances, second-place finisher Fulton thought it best to opt out of a runoff campaign, though technically a runoff vote will be carried on the September 9th city ballot. The unexpected Purcell blowout was despite two polls commissioned by the Nashville Tennessean and carried out by the respected Mason-Dixon polling firm. Both polls, the second of which appeared only a day or two before election day, showed Fulton to be in the lead. The only poll showing otherwise was one released by the Purcell campaign, and even it showed him leading by only 8 percentage points. Clearly, the mood of the Nashville electorate was volatile. Voters in the capital city turned around on the proverbial dime, and that turning was dramatically away from former three-time mayor Fulton, who was (a) the favorite; (b) the big spender; and (c) the possessor of the incumbency factor, insofar as anyone was. It remains to be seen, of course, whether the forthcoming Memphis election on October 7th will reflect similarly dramatic circumstances. There are no direct parallels, although the proportion of Memphis mayoral candidates generally regarded as "serious" (six by most reckonings) vis-a-vis the field of "no-names" (10) is roughly the same as that pertaining in Nashville. There are two signal distinctions between the two cities: (1) Race played very little role in the Nashville election, whereas it is a demographic factor always to be reckoned with in Memphis elections; (2) By federal court order in 1991, runoffs are impermissible here in the Bluff City. The effect of both these differences is probably to magnify the volatility factor somewhat, and any last-minute mood swing would be subject to no corrective in a later vote. --J.B. Lawler Redux: Help From Jesse? Just as in his accustomed world of professional wrestling (or in cartoon serials) -- where principals can suffer an apparent maiming one day and rise again, good as new, the next -- Memphis mayoral candidate Jerry Lawler seems to have handily survived the recent pratfall he took on CNBC's Hardball. And just as the matter of who manages a combatant in the wrestling ring often becomes a significant part of the plotline, so is it with candidate Lawler, who proudly boasts that one Doug Friedline -- former campaign manager to Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, no less -- has come "on board" his own campaign as a volunteer consultant. "Doug told me he never had seen two candidates and two situations so much alike," said commentator/wrestler Lawler by telephone Monday from Chicago, where he had gone on World Wresting Federation business. And there's more. Even as he spoke via long-distance on Monday, Memphian Lawler was scheduled for a head-to-head meeting this week with Ventura himself, partly to discuss campaign strategy and partly to plan a possible public event involving himself and the Minnesota governor, who -- just as Lawler is hoping to do in Memphis -- successfully combined his former wrestling fame and a populist approach to politics. Lawler has already proposed several scenarios whereby a wrestling event could be converted into a fund-raising spectacle to benefit various public causes in Memphis. He has given relatively little thought, however, to a need to raise money for his own campaign. He sees this attribute, too, as Ventura-like. "Jesse wouldn't ask people for money, either. He only raised $39,000 in eight weeks during his campaign. He had to borrow the rest." Lawler, by the way, concedes that his Hardball experience -- during which host Chris Matthews largely ignored issues and focused instead on whether boxing or wrestling matches were "fixed" -- had done him little good. "When it was over, I thought it had been a disaster, but when I watched it [on TV] later on, it didn't seem as horrible." What happened, says Lawler, was that his scheduled 6:30 p.m. taping week before last was rescheduled for three hours earlier on short notice. "I had just got out of a meeting with the Police Association, had to rush down -- that was when we were having 104-degree weather, remember -- and got into the Channel 5 studio only to find that their air conditioning was out." Then, Lawler said, it was obvious to him that Matthews was unprepared. "I actually heard him say before the countdown, 'Quick, somebody tell me, who's he running against?' He was winging it. And there I was, sweating under those lights while he was just scrambling. I felt like Richard Nixon," said Lawler, referring to the famous 1960 debate encounter between Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Lawler shrugs off two recent polls (one released by Mayor Willie Herenton) that show him with relatively low numbers. "The polls I take just moving around town saying hello to people are far different. They're going to be surprised." So far Lawler, whose wrestling duties frequently take him on trips out of town, has not been matched directly against any of his mayoral opponents. All that will change next Wednesday when he appears at high noon at The Peabody in a Kiwanis Club forum, with other presumed front-runners. --J. B.