See you there.

First-year City Councilman Kemp Conrad announced in a letter to supporters today that he’s not running for Memphis mayor.

“I made a commitment to serving Memphis on the Council and that is a responsibility I take very seriously,” he wrote…

“I want to thank all of you who have encouraged and advised me over the last few weeks to consider running for Mayor of Memphis in October. Upon deep reflection my family and I have decided not to make the race at this time. I made a commitment to serving Memphis on the Council and that is a responsibility I take very seriously…”

Here’s your updated “In/Out/Unannounced” Scorecard:

In (10)

Charles Carpenter

Carol Chumney

Wanda Halbert

James Harvey

Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges

Jerry Lawler

Myron Lowery

Sharon Webb

Ken Whalum, Jr.

A.C. Wharton

Out (3 biggies)

Kemp Conrad

Larry Godwin

Jim Strickland

Unannounced (4)

Edmund Ford Sr.

Edmund Ford Jr.

Thomas Long

Herman Morris

]]> http://willhicks.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/kemp-conrad-is-out-heres-your-10-candidates-so-far-for-mayor/feed/ 0 Will Hicks http://willhicks.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/memphis-mayoral-scorecard-7-in-2-out-6-5-on-the-fence/ http://willhicks.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/memphis-mayoral-scorecard-7-in-2-out-6-5-on-the-fence/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:32:01 +0000 Will Hicks http://willhicks.wordpress.com/?p=513 ]]> The Commercial Appeal has the story about longtime Herenton “pal” Charles Carpenter entering the race to replace Willie. Maybe Willie will leave after all.

A clear sign that Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton has every intention of retiring at the end of this month arrived in the form of a press release Wednesday afternoon announcing that attorney Charles Carpenter — who managed all five of Herenton’s mayoral campaigns — will run in the city’s special mayoral election.

That brings the announced candidates to up to seven. You can’t tell the players without a scorecard. If you want more details on these guys, I’ve got that over here.

In:

A.C. Wharton. Sitting County Mayor, lame duck due to term limits.

Myron Lowery. Sitting City Council chairman, about to be Mayor Pro-Tem for 90 days.

Carol Chumney. Former City Councilwoman, longtime Hereton foe.

Ken Whalum Jr. A poor mans Willie Herenton. Just as corrupt, without the power.

Charles Carpenter. Herenton’s best buddy. Ran all five of Herentons mayoral campaigns.

Jerry Lawler. Former champion wrestler. Also a published author, and cd recording artist.

Sharon Webb. Memphis City school board member. Received 510 votes last time she ran.

Out:

Larry Godwin. Memphis PD Director. Was considering, decided against it.

Willie Herenton (Allegedly. Don’t hold your breath kiddos). He’s packing his office and calling Cohen a racist. He might finally be gone.

Unannounced:

Jim Strickland. City Councilman. Lots of “Draft Strickland” action online.

Kemp Conrad. City Councilman. Former head of Shelby County Republican Party.

Herman Morris. Former head of MLGW. Lost to Herenton and Chumney in 2007 election.

James Harvey. Member of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners. Needs some attention.

Wanda Halbert. City Councilwoman. Got her son off for marijuana possession after he’d been arrested.

Edmund Ford Sr. Ex-City Councilman. Only guy to beat the rap on Tennessee Waltz bribery case.

Prince Mongo. Four-time candidate for Mayor and Memphis and alleged citizen of the Planet Zambodia.

Here’s what I wrote about him a few days ago:

Jerry Lawler

The former star of the wresting world (It’s still real to me….!) is playing with the idea of running. He first ran in 1999, finishing in 3rd (of 15!) to Willie and Joe Ford.

He might run, but he knows as well as anyone that he’s not going to win. He’s been making the rounds on the local radio shows and I saw him on the 9:00 news on Fox last night. He seems like a nice guy, so it’s hard to fault him for using Herentons cry for attention as a way to get some publicity for himself.

Lawler Odds of winning: 500-1

I don’t know Lawler personally, but he seems like a nice enough guy. If you can ignore the years of wrestling idiocy, he seems like a sharp guy as well. Check out some of these interviews he’s had over the years. He’s not just a meathead wrestler. He seems to really love the City of Memphis and to want what’s best for it. That’s why I’m conflicted over his candidicy.

Three reason Jerry Lawler running for Mayor of Memphis is a bad thing.

1. He’s not a “serious” candidate.

The line that jumps out of the CA story is this:

Lawler said he will not actively raise funds for the race, stressed his “common sense” and pointed to his popularity across racial lines.

If he’s not going to raise money, he has no chance of winning. You can’t buy yard signs with common sense. Popularity across racial lines doesn’t pay for direct mailings.

With the (large) exceptions of Myron Lowery and A.C. Wharton, Lawler will get the most free exposure by the media, but I don’t think that will enough to win. There are only so many people that listen to Young & Elder and Thaddeus Matthews.

2. His candidacy adds to the national embarrassment of Memphis.

Of all the things Willie Herenton has done to this city, none of them have caused the embarrassment on a nationwide scale like his “I quit. I take it back. Just kidding, I quit” game he’s been playing over the last year. Every city has officials that get indicted. Every city has officials that “like the ladies”. But his constant double-mindedness over the last year has made a mockery of you and me and every other person who lives in this city.

And now, with the eyes of the country on us, a professional wrestler joins the race to replace the cause of our shame.

I grew up in southern California and followed the recall election/Arnold Schwarzenegger running for Governor closely. They had 135 candidates for Governor, including Schwarzenegger, Gary Coleman (“Whatchu talkin’ ’bout Willis?”, a porn “star”, a radio stunt boy, a “B” movie star named “Angelyne”, and a punk rock singer. That was an embarrassment to the state and to the entire process.

Jerry seems like he’d a decent mayor. He’d certainly can’t be worse than the man he’s replacing. I just hope he, like Schwarzenegger, will take the process seriously so we can take him seriously.

3. His candidacy could have a “Price Mongo” effect on the race.

It’s a well known part of the Herenton “legacy” that he beat the Incumbent Mayor Dick Hackett by 142 votes. Sometimes forgotten in that story is the presence of Prince Mongo in the race who garnered almost 3,000 votes, allowing Herenton to win.

There are four or five “good” candidates and a bunch of bad ones for Mayor right now. If Lawlers’ presence in the race causes one of the good ones to lose, Lawler will have no one to blame but himself.

I’m sure the CA will have a more complete description up soon (Update: Here it is!), but until then, here’s what happened. These notes are from my listening and the livetweet.

• The pension board has received Herenton’s resignation, but won’t vote on it until their meeting on July 30th. Lowery was a little bent out of shape because it hasn’t been voted on yet.
• Jim Strickland wanted to know whether the question of whether Herenton’s original resignation is enforcable in Tennesse has been answered. The city attorney, Allen Wade says no. Wade is considered on be on Herenton’s “side”.
• There was a small debate over
• Wanda Halbert, known Herenton allay, wanted to know “Why we’re even talking about this”. Lowery said to the effect of “We can talk about whatever we want. We haven’t voted on anything.” (That’s not a direct quote)
• Barbara Swearengen Ware (another Herenton buddy) wants the whole thing dismissed. She considers any action taken by the council today would be premature and they’re in no position to give direction to the election commission.
• Strickland (not a member of the Herenton fan club, and possible candidate to replace him) came after Herenton:  ”Nowhere in the charter does it say Council has to accept conditions of vacancy”. He read the defination of “Resign” from the dictionary.  He made a motion to accept the resignation, effective July 30th.
• After Strickland said his peace, someone (Wade or Collins?) started a brief argument over the defination of “resign”. It started to get dumb in there.
• Collins said they should get the Mayor or his “second” involved with the debate because the 13 of them could argue about it all day, but they wouldn’t know what Willie meant.
• Lowery agreed and asked Strickland if he would withdraw his motion to accept the resignation. Strickland agreed.

This is when it got interesting. Lowery declared that matter closed and that the council would be moving onto the second matter of business, a presentation by the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. Barbara Swearengen Ware didn’t feel like she was quite down and raised her voice, half-shouting “Mister Chairman! Mister Chairman!” several times. Lowery told her again that the matter was closed and they were moving on. She managed to half-yell “Personal Privilage” three or four times before settling down and staying quiet.

Summery: Nothing important happened.

They’ve got a story up announcing that Sharon Webb is adding her name into the mix for the special election for Mayor of our fair city.

Memphis City Schools board member Sharon Webb told The Commercial Appeal that she plans to run in the City of Memphis special mayoral election — if it does indeed happen.

Webb, pastor of Life Changing Word Ministries, ran in 2007 but finished a very distant fifth with 510 of the 165,397 votes vast (0.33 percent of the vote).

Webb had previously run successful underdog campaigns to serve on the Memphis Charter Commission and to unseat Carl Johnson on the school board

I’ll update the big list with her name soon. She’s going to finish near the bottom of the second tier candidates. She’ll get more votes than Prince Mongo and (maybe) Jerry Lawler, but she’ll be stuck in the pack with Charles Carpenter, Ken Whalum, James Harvey and Wanda Halbert. Sorry Sharon.

Spoiler Alert: Willie’s not going anywhere.

Myron Lowery and Herenton are having a “bigger desk” contest and the city of Memphis is the one who suffers for it.

Herenton has said repetedly he “wants to go out on his own terms”. He had a chance to do that. He just won an election he didn’t want to run in, for an office he doesn’t want to hold, for a city that doesn’t want him as Mayor. He decided to resign to allow enough time to prepare for his upcoming defeat by Steve Cohen. I didn’t make him resign. The city council wasn’t going to force him to resign. Now the city council may try and force him to abide by his original resignation date of July 10th.

Willie loves a fight and now he’s got one. The city council may give him a pass on this one, but when he tries to extend it AGAIN, past July 31st, I expect Lowery and the other non-cronies on the council to come out swinging.

Prince Mongo.

His mom calls him Robert Hodges, but he calls himself “Prince Mongo, the ambassador of the planet Zambodia.” He has been a local, uh, “eccentric” around town for years. His most notable contribution to the history of Memphis was his campaign for City Mayor in 1991. Mongo recieved almost 3,000 votes allowing Willie Herenton to beat incumbent Mayor Dick Hackett by 142 votes.  He’s been laying low lately, but he may throw his hat in the ring as well. Thanks to VitreousHumor on Twitter for the Mongo reminder.

Mongo Odds of winning: 1000-1

Willie Herenton

Mayor. Currently. His resignation is the reason we’re even talking about the special election, but according to this article on the Commercial Appeal, Herenton has considered resigning and then running in the special election, “depending on how many candidates get in the race, to keep it from getting crazy.” Yeah, because that wouldn’t be crazy.

He’s already filed for his pension and several of his cronies and lapdogs have already resigned as well. Those actions, combined with Willies’ newfound hatred for Steve Cohen and desire for his seat in Congress point to him finally going away this time. However, if he resigns and runs in the special election just to be a pain, he’ll win easily. He’s about as doubleminded and unstable as the good Mr. Mongo.

If he resigns and runs, he’ll win. 5-1 he’ll pull that garbage on the city.

Herenton Odds of winning: 5-1

The list was put together by the people at Old Spice, but their methodology is flawed from the start.

The Sweatiest Cities rankings are based on computer simulations of the amount of sweat a person of average height and weight would produce walking around for an hour in the average temperatures during the summer months, based on historical weather data during June, July and August from 2001-2008 for each city.

I’m not saying Phoenix isn’t hot, but it’s the definition of “dry heat”. Most mornings in August around here I’ll start sweating walking from my front door to my car at 7:00 in the morning.

Memphis: Humidity lives here.

Top-20 All-Time Sweatiest Cities in America

1. Phoenix, AZ

2. San Antonio, TX

3. Las Vegas, NV

4. Dallas, TX

5. Houston, TX

6. New Orleans, LA

7. Miami, FL

8. West Palm Beach, FL

9. Tampa, FL

10. Orlando, FL

11. Memphis, TN

12. Tucson, AZ

13. El Paso, TX

14. Fort Myers, FL

15. Waco, TX

16. Austin, TX

17. Birmingham, AL

18. Shreveport, LA

19. Corpus Cristi, TX

20. Mobile, AL