Wishful Thinking It's hard to tell fantasy from reality as mayoral candidates get into their spin. by JACKSON BAKER uick, somebody! How does that Twilight Zone theme go? Dee-dee-dee-dup, dee-dee-dee-dup.We may need it as background music for an increasingly bizarre mayoral contest. So, okay, the Shelby County Republican Party's steering committee bit the bullet last week and endorsed former Shelby County Commissioner Pete Sisson as its candidate for mayor. But (a) did it? And (b) is he? The answers are (a) Yes, but ; and (b) It remains to be seen. The fact is, the GOP candidate-recruitment committee, which was charged with making recommendations for endorsements and had interviewed all of the avowedly Republican mayoral candidates -- Sisson, Mary Rose McCormick, and Jack McNeil -- urged the full steering committee unequivocally to make no endorsement at all. In deciding to overrule its appointed screening body, the steering committee was heavily influenced by former County Commissioner (and Sisson colleague) Ed Williams, who spoke as an ex officio member from the GOP state committee, and by former county chairman David Kustoff, who rendered his vote for Sisson by proxy. The result left a number of Republicans unpleased and restless, including some who just don't see Sisson as a strong and effective candidate and some who back other aspirants, including incumbent Mayor Willie Herenton. And, as Sisson prepares for his gala $1,000-a-head fund-raiser at the Summit Club Thursday night, does he or does he not have the backing he says he has? The invitation for the affair lists Governor Don Sundquist as the event's primary host, but gubernatorial spokesperson Beth Fortune confirmed again what she had said two weeks ago -- that neither she nor Sundquist had been given a chance to see the invitation in advance, to influence it, or to approve it, that she didn't think the terms "host" or "endorsement" applied, and that the governor had "many friends" in the mayoral race. As evidence of the latter, Sundquist had in fact hosted a big-ticket fund-raiser for Herenton himself at the governor's residence as recently as February. Conceivably, Sundquist may split the middle on Thursday night, accepting the title of "host" but distancing himself from an outright endorsement of Sisson. But that's not the end of the confusion over the Sisson fund-raiser and its participants. One person listed on the invitation as a host for the affair is Memphis city councilman John Bobango, who said Monday that no one had ever requested his permission to be so listed or even asked him whether he supported Sisson. "I even had a couple of people call me up and ask me how much money I'd raised for the affair," said a baffled Bobango, who said he had not yet reached a determination as to who he might support for mayor. Whatever the degree of his support, Sisson was in high good humor as he joined five other candidates (not including Herenton or city council chairman Joe Ford) for a forum at the Dutch Treat Luncheon at Barnhill's Country Buffet at Eastgate Saturday. "Do you feel it? A breeze that's turning into change!" said a clearly pumped-up Sisson, who said Memphis had been "going downhill" under Herenton and that the city property tax rate had risen "50 percent under this administration." * Saturday's forum was notable for the appearance -- first alongside other mayoral candidates -- of wrestling eminence Jerry Lawler, who, like Sisson, viewed the past with alarm. "The general consensus is that we're losing this city," said Lawler, who promised "honesty and common sense" and a "racially progressive city" if elected. (On hand for the forum was Lawler's newly appointed campaign manager, Linda Witherspoon, who was one of the chief organizers of the Reform Party in Tennessee eight years ago. Lawler continued to hold out hope that another Reform Party personage, former wrestler and current Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, might have some role to play in the Memphis mayoral race.) The most interesting exchange at the Dutch Treat forum occurred when a member of the audience -- which, as usual, was made up predominantly of social conservatives -- asked the candidates on hand about their attitudes toward abortion. The most succinct responses were those of Mary Rose McCormick and Lawler. McCormick's complete response was: "I'm pro-vasectomy." Lawler's was: "I've had a vasectomy." * The presumed "Big Two" mayoral candidates meanwhile were making their own moves. Mindful of Sisson's attempt to gather the city's white Republicans to his standard, Herenton -- who would like to add as many as possible to his own total -- made his own pitch for Republican votes last week to members of the Cordova Republican Club. He began by issuing an appeal for his audience to join him in overseeing the "destruction" of Memphis' "Ford machine," saying that he -- and they -- had an "historic opportunity" to do so, reminiscent of the successful effort by Mayor Edmund Orgill and others to do away with the old Crump political machine in the 1950s. Aware that a move to get Sisson the official GOP endorsement was then afoot, Herenton asked his audience of suburban Republicans to disregard their party's steering committee. "The business community supports me. My major contributors are Republicans. And I believe the majority of the Republican rank and file will support Willie Herenton," he said. Herenton suggested that Cordova Republicans might follow his own lead, in being willing to cross party lines -- something he said he had done in 1994 when he, a Democrat, endorsed Republican Don Sundquist for Governor and ignored the pleadings of his Democratic party-mates in high places. "I was under pressure from Vice President Al Gore to endorse [Democrat] Phil Bredesen, but I was going to support Don Sundquist because I thought he would be the best governor for Memphis." We're in the zone again. Dee-dee-dee-dup. Dee-dee-dee-dup. There is in fact no record of any kind, anywhere, to support Herenton's claim that he "endorsed" Sundquist in 1994. One can indeed search high and low through his utterances during the 1994 campaign and find not a single word or deed of his in support of the then Republican candidate. What Herenton did do was decline to issue a public endorsement of Nashville Mayor Bredesen, then the nominee of his party -- a fact which put Bredesen, however, on the same footing as Sundquist. No more and no less. The fact is that neither got the nod from Herenton in that election. Even so, it was a smooth and artful performance for Herenton in Cordova, and he probably made some headway with the small band of Republican club members who heard him out. As he pointed out, the figure most likely to get the official GOP endorsement from the party elders even then meeting at Republican headquarters on Poplar Avenue was former Shelby County Commissioner Pete Sisson, and Sisson, Herenton observed, was running poorly. A vote for Sisson would be, in effect, a vote for "the Ford machine," he said. And the only way to defeat the Ford machine, to remove it from the political scene altogether, was to vote for him, Willie Herenton. * Meanwhile, council chairman Ford, whose campaign for mayor had seemed to lose momentum of late, rallied last Wednesday night with a strong performance in a meet-and-greet affair at Discover U, a concerned citizens' venue which meets at the Deliberate Literate Cafe in Midtown Memphis. Ford addressed a number of issues in a Q and A, ranging from crime control to billboards to a city transportation system. In particular, he stressed the importance of bolstering high-tech education in Memphis' schools so as to provide a workforce for advanced new industry. Ford also promised to find "13 contractors to air-condition the 13 schools that are without it" during his first week in office. Responding to Herenton's threat the previous evening to "destroy the Ford political machine," Councilman Ford noted that his family had "75 years of combined political service to the community," and said, "I'm not going to run from the Ford name. I've got to live up to it. If I'm anything like Harold Ford Sr. or Harold Ford Jr., then you'll have a great mayor. You won't have anything to worry about." * Local campaign notes: Former city councilman Jack Sammons, a candidate for the council Super-District 9, Position 3, seat, hosted some 150 supporters at his East Memphis residence Friday night, promising "straight talk" on the issue of city financing. Councilman Jerome Rubin (District 3, Whitehaven) opened his headquarters on Elvis Presley Boulevard Saturday, listing his stands on a number of issues ranging from economic development to pawn shop control and introducing supporters, including Tom and Denise Jeanette, community activists from Hickory Hill. Besides Sammons, other council candidates endorsed by the Shelby GOP last week were incumbents Brent Taylor, Tom Marshall, and Pat Vander Schaaf, and challengers Allan Fisher and Darrell Catron. Councilman John Vergos (District 5, Midtown) held a well-attended fund-raiser at the family-owned Rendezvous restaurant Monday night. * A recent $1 trillion tax cut, voted by congressional Republicans but destined for presidential veto, would amount, if enacted, to a "generational mugging" on millions of Americans yet to come of age, said 8th District U.S. Representative John Tanner of Union City to a Frayser Exchange Club luncheon Thursday. Tanner, one of the leaders of a moderate "Blue Dog" coalition in the House of Representatives, said the GOP package was based on unrealistic expectations of surplus revenues "which nobody can say will even come in," especially if "any sort of recession occurs within the next 10 years." Assuming the same trillion-dollar surplus anticipated by the Republicans, Democrat Tanner proposed a "Blue Dog" alternative, which he said was consistent with President Clinton's own tax-cut proposals. The "Blue Dog" version would apply half a trillion dollars to paying down the national debt, which he said had risen to $3.6 trillion last year. Another 25 percent of the surplus would go to a "targeted middle-class tax cut," said Tanner. And a final one-fourth of it would be applied to necessary spending in areas ranging from veterans' benefits, military expansion, Medicare, and education, he said. On other subjects, Tanner said the opposed I-69 route through West Tennessee remained unsettled and that President Clinton's proposals for including prescriptions within Medicare might, in the interests of reducing expense, be shelved in favor of trade negotiations with Mexico, an increasingly competitive source of cheaper drugs. * Retired Commercial Appeal political reporter, Terry Keeter, who is suffering from emphysema and the after-effects of pneumonia, had as his guests for his 61st birthday Saturday night at his residence on Crump Avenue a general cross-section of political luminaries -- left, right, Republican, Democrat, what-have-you. Governor Goes "Sunny" Over Bush If there is considerable doubt as to whether Governor Don Sundquist supports former Commissioner Pete Sisson (or anyone else) for Memphis mayor (see main Politics story), there is no longer any doubt as to his presidential preference. Three days after Texas Governor George Bush's sweeping victory in the GOP's Iowa Straw Poll and one day after former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander's formal withdrawal from the presidential race, Sundquist called a press conference in Nashville to announce he would support Bush for the Republican nomination for president. Sundquist thereby became the 22nd of the nation's 30 Republican governors to endorse Bush. "As a colleague of Gov. Bush's, I have watched him become one of the strongest governors in the country. His record in Texas is outstanding and many of his innovative programs have served as models for the nation," said Sundquist, referring to Bush as a "proven leader." The Texas governor (who privately calls the Tennessee governor by the nickname "Sunny") reciprocated, saying in a release, "Gov. Sundquist is a valued colleague and a good, close friend and I am honored to have his support." Memphis attorney David Kustoff, who flanked Sundquist at the Nashville press conference, will continue to serve as campaign manager for Bush's Tennessee campaign.