End of the Road Leaking dollars, the mayoral campaign caravans finally narrow into a single lane. by JACKSON BAKER he record will show that Memphis' two chief candidates for mayor -- incumbent Willie Herenton and city council chairman Joe Ford -- hit the 1999 campaign's final week running hard and spending record levels for a local election -- although there were many who wondered what Herenton actually got for his reported $825,000 in expenditures. Until late in the campaign, Ford -- who spent a reported $531,000 -- was considerably more noticeable in commercials on Memphis television and radio than was Herenton, who did, however, begin turning up on the air more regularly in the campaign's last week -- especially in a widely seen face-to-the-camera direct appeal to the voters. "The other stuff -- it wasn't really me," said Herenton of previous commercials showing him wearing a hardhat at a construction site and in various other poses while a narrator's voice-over made the case. The earlier series of commercials resembled somewhat Ford's, which also relied on a voice-over technique and made some hard-sitting attacks on the mayor's record. Ironically, Herenton's visage and his excerpted remarks from a testy encounter with the press -- both featured in a Ford commercial -- were the main ways in which Herenton was featured directly in the media until the last few days. Herenton's expenditures differed from Ford in that almost all of the mayor's money was raised in this or that fund-raiser, while Ford, according to his disclosure statement, loaned his own campaign $65,000 and took out a $140,000 loan from Tri-State Bank. Both candidates spent heavily for advertising and printing expenses, according to their disclosures to the Election Commission of contributions, expenses, and obligations. At a reception for Herenton held at Dr. John Shea's posh East Memphis home Monday night, the famed Memphis ear surgeon noted pointedly that he had been a supporter in 1991 of former Mayor Dick Hackett but that he had become a strong adherent of Herenton's since. Singing the incumbent's praises, Shea said the election gave Memphians an opportunity to put aside long-held racial differences. Seconding the theme, Herenton evoked the spectre of Ford family control of Memphis politics. If Joe Ford won, said the mayor, brother Harold Ford Sr., the former 9th District congressman and the councilman's campaign manager, could be appointed CAO for the city, while state Senator John Ford, another brother, might become city police director. Another family member could control the city's Airport Authority, with its contracting potential for some $5 million, Herenton said. Finishing up a day's handshaking campaign, which culminated in a Monday-night forum at a retirement home in South Memphis, councilman Ford dismissed Herenton's vision as "absurd" and said, "He knows none of that is going to happen." Earlier Monday, Ford had said at a press conference that Mayor Herenton had failed to bring the city into compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act by holding back on making city sidewalks accessible to wheelchairs. Ford has frequently been critical of Herenton for alleged failure to spend money on community needs while lavishing it on downtown development projects. Other candidates on the ballot Thursday included former Shelby County Commissioner Pete Sisson, a Herenton critic who has the local Republican Party endorsement; pro wrestler/commentator Jerry Lawler, who had attempted a Jesse Ventura-style outsider's campaign; County Commissioner Shep Wilbun, and former city council member Mary Rose McCormick. All four "second tier" candidates still nursed their hopes for success, though most observers gave them little to no chance for an outright victory. Their effect on the Herenton-Ford race was the subject of widespread speculation, however -- the consensus being that most votes received by the four candidates would come at the expense of Mayor Herenton. That was clearly the mayor's viewpoint as well. At the Shea gathering, Herenton -- who has consistently argued that a vote for other candidates is a de facto vote for councilman Ford -- said that Harold Ford Sr., his brother's campaign manager, had counted on, even encouraged, a large field in order to split up the non-Ford vote. "The more the merrier was his philosophy," Herenton declared. And the idea of collusion or common purpose involving the mayor's opponents was hardly diffused by a remark made Monday night at a forum at John Madison Exum Towers. County Trustee Bob Patterson, who was subbing for the absent Sisson, said, according to The Commercial Appeal, that voters looking "for a change" should vote for Sisson but, if not for him, then for Ford. Sisson, who was pursuing an unusual strategy, last week released the results of a homegrown poll which showed him actually trailing the mayor in the white and Republican portions of the electorate -- presumably Sisson's base voting populations. The point seemed to be that the former commissioner was competitive with Joe Ford for second place overall. And, oddly enough, coupled with some decent media prepared for the Sisson campaign, the poll may indeed have spurred some voting -- both for Sisson and against him. The former commissioner, incidentally, was one of two major candidates -- the other being Wilbun -- whose disclosures had still not arrived in the Election Commission office by press time Tuesday afternoon. Mayor Herenton was late with his, turning it in Monday after a weekend of feverish preparation and attributing the delay to a lack of knowledge of the Commission's deadline on the part of his campaign treasurer, Osbie Howard. (Former congressman Ford was quick to suggest that the late disclosure forms were another instance, like an ill-prepared and unsuccessful application for a federal empowerment-zone grant, of the mayor's disposition to put things off.) Lawler, whom many had counted on to be a major force in the election, remained an Unknown Quantity as election day approached. Clearly, his effectiveness had been limited by the off-and-on manner of campaigning dictated by his obligations as an itinerant commentator for the World Wrestling Federations. But though he had failed to create a movement of the proportions he needed to become a major factor, he clearly had a number of fans and well-wishers out there in the electorate. How many of them would bother to vote was the key question. In his financial disclosures, Lawler reported spending only $24,583. As he said somewhat ruefully late in the campaign, "It's a hard thing to do to have to ask people for money. And I discovered that if you don't ask for it, you don't get it." Like Lawler, McCormick depended on a series of relatively modest contributions for a portion of her $75,000 in funds raised. But, unlike Lawler, she had a firmer idea of whom to put the arm on. She loaned herself $60,000 of the total, and much of that was earmarked for her own late-blooming radio and TV commercials. McCormick, who had not fared well in an earlier series of polls done for The Commercial Appeal, did significantly better in Sisson's poll, which seemed to show the possibility of her breaking into double digits. Wilbun was keeping to the campaign trail; he and Ford were the only mayoral candidates to attend the Monday night forum at John Madison Exum Towers. There Wilbun suggested, as he has repeatedly, that Memphis is lagging dangerously behind other cities of comparable size in various indices of social welfare and civic accomplishment. Part Paul Tsongas-like scold, part exhortatory presence, Wilbun had managed to impress pockets of voters, but his low-budget campaign had clearly not gained him sufficient exposure to become a major force. Most prognoses -- even at the Monday night affair at the Shea residence -- involved the prospect of a late rush by Ford voters (mainly on the strength of the Ford organization's patented Get-Out-the-Vote efforts, involving fleets of vehicles this year) and a close final tally. n Inadvertently left out last week from a list of candidates for City Council Super-District 9, Position 3, was Richard W. Parks, a lawyer making his maiden political race and advocating several specific issues. Among them: tax reform, better pay for teachers, improved public access to the proceedings of government institutions, and preservation of public park facilities. Despite firm letters from lawyers David Cocke and Walter Bailey asking for a retraction, WMC-TV, Action News 5 is sticking to its story -- that candidate Joe Ford was certifiably in arrears (to the tune of $14,000) on child support payments owed a Whitehaven woman. In running its third story on the subject Tuesday night, however, the station did note that the unidentified mother is withdrawing her legal petition to collect the back amount. On the eve of its local election, the Memphis political community was shaken by grief this week at the news that 17-year-old Jason Carson, son of Democratic activist Gale Jones Carson, had been killed while driving a separate vehicle to accompany his brother Bryan on a weekend trip to the University of Tennessee at Martin, where Bryan was a student. At some point young Carson, a junior at East High School who had taken summer school classes at Martin, went off the road and plowed into a tree. Gale Jones Carson, the state Democratic Party secretary, is as widely liked and admired as anybody in politics -- a tribute to her ability to maintain a wide variety of relations while taking up specific causes with some vigor. Funeral services for her son, sure to be well attended, were scheduled for noon Friday at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. Harrison's Orange Mound Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements. Leftover Money? Where Can It Go? In the wake of the 1991 Memphis mayor's race, in which underdog Willie Herenton defeated incumbent Mayor Dick Hackett by a mere 142 votes, Hackett drew the ire of some supporters (notably Dr. John Shea (see main story) for his failure to spend more than a fraction of his considerable campaign chest. Subsequent legislation in Nashville has clarified the guidelines for the disposal of unused campaign money raised from others. As spelled out by the state Registry of Election Finance: ·"The funds may be retained or transferred to any campaign fund. ·"The monies may be returned to any or all of the candidates' contributors. ·"The funds may be distributed to the executive committee of the candidate's political party . ·"[They] may be deposited in a volunteer public education trust fund [or to a variety of other institutions pursuing public purposes]. ·"[They] may be distributed to [non-profit institutions.]" Lastly and importantly: ·"If the candidate is an officeholder, the funds may be used to defray any ordinary and necessary expenses incurred in connection with the office of the officeholder. (Includes, but is not limited to, the cost of advertisements, membership fees, and donations to community causes)."