Style Over Substance II
When you ask some people why they are voting for A.C. Wharton, most of them just say he has character and integrity. Where are they getting this information from? I can't say that he does or doesn't, but if so he is not the only one in possesion of these qualities. I haven't heard of Myron Lowery being involved in any scandals or cheating on his wife either. But no one has bothered to mention that. Even though it is not necessarily obvious from his record.It seems any attempt to sully or discredit the county mayor's name is falling on deaf ears. Fortunately for A.C. Wharton some Memphians choose style over substance.
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Public's image of Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton powerful
Personality, record keep critics' barbs from sticking
By Alex Doniach (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Sunday, September 20, 2009
When then-Memphis City Schools Supt. Willie W. Herenton found himself embroiled in a sexual harassment lawsuit with a teacher in 1989, he called on attorney A C Wharton to represent him.
When Herenton made a run for city mayor, he tapped Wharton to lead two of his campaigns.
Nikki Boertman/The Commercial Appeal
Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton has largely sidestepped mudslinging critics.
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And years later, when Herenton and Wharton served as Memphis and Shelby County mayors, respectively, the two would work in tandem on issues such as city and county consolidation.
Yet as Herenton has been maligned for his caustic style and backroom deals, Wharton, 65, has largely avoided criticism — and his connections to Herenton have primarily eluded voters in the run-up to the Oct. 15 special election for Memphis mayor.
Despite attempts by opponents to paint Wharton as a Herenton sympathizer, attack his achievements and question his ability to make hard decisions, Wharton has mostly managed to sidestep his mudslinging critics.
Political observers say Wharton has maintained his popularity by force of personality, combined with a record of effectively governing a county of nearly 1 million people with a budget of more than $1 billion.
Even now, the affable county mayor and longtime former public defender, known more for his pressed suits than his personal associations, remains the front-runner in the circus of candidates vying to replace Herenton.
Herenton earlier this month named Wharton his likely successor, a prediction supported by a Commercial Appeal-WREG-TV Channel 3 poll released last week showing Wharton commanding support from 45 percent of those surveyed. Former City Councilwoman Carol Chumney and Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery trailed with 11 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
"It is clear to me that unless something earth-shattering occurs between now and election day, County Mayor A C Wharton will, at the end of the day, achieve the highest number of votes," Herenton said recently.
"People want something different, and Mr. Wharton is different," he said.
Wharton's opponents have tried to attack his sterling public image.
Chumney wasted no time reminding voters of a 2007 meeting between Herenton and Wharton at a Midtown restaurant, after which Wharton opted not to run for city mayor. Longtime Herenton campaign manager Charles Carpenter, also a candidate, wonders why he has been cast in the Herenton camp while Wharton has gotten a "pass."
And while Wharton has been heralded as a consensus-seeker throughout his tenure, this quality has become a liability on the campaign trail, with critics accusing him of avoiding tough decisions.
Yet Rhodes political science professor Marcus Pohlmann said Wharton's strengths stem from a "quiet demeanor that sort of exudes confidence."
Cont.
Wharton, who has been spotted watering his East Parkway garden in his signature three-piece suit, has, in contrast to Herenton, cast himself as open and accessible. He's regularly seen at the Midtown Starbucks and the Schnucks on Union.
"When a politician is as well liked as A C Wharton is as long as he's been in office, those favorables tend to stick no matter what happens — even if he stumbles on an issue," said Susan Adler Thorp, a media strategist who remains a close consultant to Wharton.
Unlike Herenton, who fights with the media and is famous for his inflammatory remarks, Wharton is seen as less controversial, she said.
These days, there is little talk of a Wharton family scandal that erupted in 2007 when his son, A C Wharton III, then 34, was convicted of the statutory rape of a 13-year-old he met in an Internet chat room.
Wharton, who has three sons and raised three other boys, said he doesn't hide the fact that his oldest son has a "number of issues" — a reality that weighs heavily on him.
But that he has emerged from personal turmoil is only proof of his mayoral timber, Wharton contends.
"I have been tested in storms, in political turmoil, in personal troubles, family troubles and I have made it through all those storms and tests," he said in a recent interview.
Few questions were also raised in 2008 when Wharton's daughter-in-law, Monica N. Wharton, was picked as the general counsel for the Regional Medical Center at Memphis.
While Wharton appoints members to The Med's board of directors, board chairman Gene Holcomb said the board was not involved in the hiring. And Wharton is adamant he had nothing to do with it.
Those connections could doom a less popular politician, but supporters say Wharton's integrity allows him to weather them.
"Wharton, more than anything, is a very honest man to the bone," said former County Commissioner Cleo Kirk, a longtime friend.
Wharton credits his Teflon image to an ironclad self-discipline and ability to distance himself from the influence of colleagues and friends.
It's this self-discipline, he said, that awakens him every morning at 4:50 without an alarm clock, that propelled him out of a small-town childhood in Lebanon, Tenn., to law school at the University of Mississippi and later into the county mayor's office.
It's also this discipline that has shielded him from others' influence. By his own admission, Wharton is a man with few close confidants. He says he learned as a defense attorney that it's not your enemies who generally get you in trouble, but your friends.
"I cannot just point to a male friend with whom I can just confide and share my happiest moments, my most fearful moments," he said.
But beyond Wharton's character, critics also have been quick to question his mayoral achievements.
"During Wharton's past seven years, we've seen no reduction in infant mortality, no results on consolidation of the city/county governments, no results on securing adequate funding for the Regional Medical Center," Chumney said.
cont.
While Wharton takes credit for rescuing the county's federally funded Head Start program and launching Books from Birth, which distributes free books to children, Carpenter said neither program is funded by the county.
"In other words, he has done very little with the resources and the leadership at Shelby County," he said.
Wharton defends his accomplishments, crediting his administration with regaining control of the county's massive debt, shifting focus toward early childhood education and improving the county's emergency preparedness system, including adoption of a faster ambulance service.
He also touts his leadership with providing a focus to trails, green space and sustainability, including the redesign and preservation of Shelby Farms.
When Wharton took office in 2002, a crushing debt quickly curtailed his loftier ambitions.
In prior years, development of virgin land in East Shelby County pushed the population beyond the Memphis city limits. The need for new schools and infrastructure followed, causing the county's debt to skyrocket.
"It was the greatest chilling effect," Wharton said of the debt. "It put a damper on everything."
Wharton brought in financial experts to manage the debt and proceeded to disentangle the county from expensive services, giving away the county-managed parks and libraries and selling a county-operated nursing home.
He also created a committee tasked with prioritizing school construction projects, which account for $1.1 billion of the debt.
The debt had reached $1.4 billion when Wharton took office, later peaking at $1.8 billion in 2006. It has since dropped to $1.7 billion as of June 30.
"Not only did we break the back of that spiraling growth, but now for the first time in I don't know how many years, the debt is actually decreasing and will continue to do so," Wharton said.
County Commissioner George Flinn, a Republican who campaigned against Wharton, a Democrat, in 2002, said Wharton tackled the debt with a "calm and methodical approach."
"Rather than make sweeping change, he finds areas where he can save money or make services more functional and efficient," Flinn said.
Wharton said without raising property taxes he still managed to expand county services for early childhood development, higher education and prisoner re-entry, often by leveraging private, state and federal funds.
While critics contend Wharton should have accomplished more, Wharton has not shared the level of power Herenton enjoyed as city mayor. As county mayor, Wharton has direct control over only about 30 percent of the county budget, which he shares with other county elected officials.
But former County Commissioner Walter Bailey, a fellow attorney who has known Wharton for years, said the mayor gets criticized for not doing enough trail-blazing on social issues, particularly in job growth for minorities.
Wharton said he wishes he could have done more, but he doesn't dwell on regrets.
And if elected, Wharton said his pace will match the demands of the job.
"They play hardball in city government," he said. "I know how to play hardball when I need to play hardball."
David S. Broder: Making weight an election issue is new low
It'll be interesting to see if there's a backlash of New Jersey voters opposing slim incumbent Corzine's attempts to turn them against portly challenger Christie.
By David S. Broder, Washington Post Writers Group
Posted October 12, 2009
Every time you think politics has hit a new low, it finds a way to go lower. I thought we had reached the nadir last month when Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted "You lie!" at President Barack Obama while he was speaking to a joint session of Congress.
But then The New York Times caught me up on what has been happening in New Jersey. Campaigns there are rarely elevated affairs, but the current battle between Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican challenger Christopher Christie has sunk to new depths.
As the Times pointed out, a television ad for Corzine, "about as subtle as a playground taunt," shows Christie "stepping out of an SUV in extreme slow motion, his extra girth moving, just as slowly, in several different directions at once. In case viewers missed the point, a narrator snidely intones" that Christie, the former U.S. attorney for New Jersey, "threw his weight around" to avoid several traffic tickets.
As if that were not enough, Corzine, who is 62 and conspicuously fit, has been running weekend 5- and 10-kilometer races in cities around the state to demonstrate that he has kept himself in much better shape than Christie, despite the 15-year difference in their ages.
I have no rooting interest in the New Jersey race, but the ad hoc Committee of Journalistic Ethics Enforcers has authorized me to condemn this advertising tactic. I very much fear that if Corzine pulls out a victory next month after trailing Christie for months in the polls, the precedent will be set for a really distasteful tactic -- the "fat boy" ploy.
If you believe, as I do, that the "beautiful people" already have enough of an advantage in this age of television politics and cable trivia, then the last thing we need is a wave of ads highlighting that others are really ugly.
I worry about the many Senate and House incumbents in both parties who have plumped up since they came to Washington. Lobbyists can no longer buy members' lunches or dinners, but there still are notable trenchermen among them -- including some prominent men and women who always try to be photographed with their coats buttoned.
It's long been argued that Abraham Lincoln, with his hangdog looks and bad complexion, could never be elected these days. If Stephen Douglas had chosen to ridicule Lincoln's face, rather than debate him on the issues, American history might have turned out very differently.
This is not an issue that Barack Obama can afford to ignore. As the leader of the Democratic Party, he is accountable for the Corzine campaign. He has to know that if he, Obama, were not such a lean, fit and dead-eye basketball player, he could be a target himself.
He may be tempted to emulate Corzine's tactics when he runs for re-election, if he's lucky enough to draw Newt Gingrich as his opponent. But he ought to remember that it could as easily be Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty or the calorie-counting Mike Huckabee.
But Democrats with longer memories (or less dire political circumstances) than Corzine's ought to remember recent history. Suppose that George W. Bush, Mr. Fitness, had thrown weight onto the scales against Al Gore in 2000. Does anyone think it would have taken 36 days to figure out who won?
Or go back to Bill Clinton, who obviously showed the effects of too many stops at McDonald's. Papa Bush and Bob Dole, with not an extra ounce of fat, could have made him a laughingstock.
When I get to New Jersey in a couple of weeks, I'll be intrigued to learn whether there has been a backlash among voters who may be sensitive about their own weight. But the Times reported that Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University poll, said that when asked to say what came first to voters' minds about Christie, one of the most frequent answers was "fat."
Christie has tried to dispose of the "issue" by losing 25 pounds in just the last four months. But he ought to remember what happened with Huckabee in last year's presidential race. He drew as much attention early on in the primaries as a successful dieter as he did for any aspect of his biography. But he lost.
This issue has no place in our politics.
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