Will our slow-starting mayor's race heat up down the stretch?
by Joe Sullivan
It's the first of an indeterminate number of mayoral candidates' forums, and a sparse gathering of about 50, mostly older folks, has assembled in folding chairs around the gazebo at Adair Park in Fountain City.
Mayor Victor Ashe, casually attired in a plaid sport shirt, leads off by saying, "I've tried to be a neighborhood mayor and am committed to making sure our neighborhoods continue to prosper and grow." A mostly monotonic recitation of his accomplishments and goals ends with a flourishing, "And if you re-elect me, you'll have the hardest working mayor you'll ever see."
Former mayor Randy Tyree, shirt-sleeved but necktied, offers an initial assurance that, "I am not running against Mayor Ashe. I am running for the city of Knoxville." But then he laments that, "This community is fragmented.... We have the city doing its thing and the county doing its thing; and we're not prepared to go into the new millennium because we don't have unity." Not to worry, though, because, "If I'm elected, there's going to be peace and tranquillity between the city and the county, the police and the sheriff. We're going to restore the kind of unity we had behind the World's Fair when I was mayor before."
Then it's City Councilman Danny Mayfield's turn. Dapper in a dark blue suit, white dress shirt and designer tie, Mayfield relies heavily on a flip chart that includes a list of the differences between a leader and a manager. These attributes he says, are drawn from a book he recently checked out from Lawson McGhee library. "We need a leader for the city of Knoxville, and I offer refreshing visionary leadership," he concludes.
Each of the three candidates for mayor draws polite applause, as do two perennial also-rans (John "Sunshine" Madden and Boyce McCall) whose names are also on the ballot. Yet with the countdown continuing toward the September 28 voting that could well decide the outcome, there's anything but excitement in the air about the contest.
Indeed, the 1999 mayor's race up to now seems more notable for what isn't happening than what is. As of the end of August, media coverage was minimal, and none of the candidates had aired their first radio or television spots. The League of Women Voters isn't compiling the election guide that it usually distributes—via Metro Pulse—prior to local elections. (But the League is sponsoring a candidates' forum at 4 p.m. on Sunday, September 12, in the main assembly room of the City/County Building.)
Asked for his take on the mayor's race, political commentator Theotis Robinson—a former city councilman from the inner city district Mayfield now represents—ventures: "What mayor's race?"
Of course, the campaign will probably heat up between now and election day. In fact, on September 1 Ashe launched TV spots on all the network channels that will consume a big chunk of the $200,000 he's budgeted for the September 28 election. (The mayor is holding the balance of a $300,000 war chest in reserve in case there's a run-off on November 2, which would result if no candidate gets a majority of the votes cast on September 28.) But Ashe's television message is remarkably low key. As the camera first zooms in on the mayor working at his desk and then pans the Knoxville skyline, a mayoral voiceover avuncularly intones that, "I want to make sure that our best years are still ahead of us and that we lay the foundation for moving ahead. The record we've compiled is a pretty strong recommendation that Victor Ashe can do the job and do it well." There's no reference to the fact that he's already been doing it for 12 years and is seeking an unprecedented fourth term in office.
Tyree spots began running on some pure cable channels September 7 but won't reach the big buck network outlets until a week before election day (after two weeks of early voting has almost concluded). The silver-haired former mayor (1975-83) is elusive about how many bucks he has to spend, saying only that his campaign is "adequately funded." There are some variations in Tyree's TV message, but the recurring theme portrays him as the Great Unifier. After sounding it himself as a talking head, a closing voiceover proclaims that it's time for a change.
Mayfield says he's produced an ad for the tube but doesn't yet have the money to buy air time. "We're not even trying to compete with Victor monetarily, but I've been out there campaigning full time since June, and our web site is also central. We've already had over 600 hits," enthuses the 30-year-old Knoxville College graduate, whose award-winning TV spots were a major contributor to his upset victory in a 1997 city council race.
Only Ashe has the money to have done any polling, but he's predictably guarded about what his polls are showing. "Let's just say they make me cautiously optimistic that we won't need to have a run-off," the mayor proffers.
Anyhow, polling can be hazardous in an election where the size of the voter turn-out is highly unpredictable. The total vote in Knoxville mayoral races has fluctuated from less than 20,000 in 1995 when Ashe defeated a less-than-serious challenger to upwards of 50,000 in 1975 when Tyree pulled off a huge upset over the incumbent, Kyle Testerman.
As a rule, low turnouts favor the incumbent, connoting satisfaction, apathy, or a sense of no contest. That's especially the case when the incumbent is a past master, such as Ashe, in mobilizing a get-out-the-vote effort on his behalf. Ashe ventures that, "I'll be surprised if it [the 1999 turnout] exceeds 20,000." In sharp contrast, Tyree predicts a turnout of 30,000 plus.
For all his lack of visibility to date, Tyree contends that "substantial frustrations and animosities have built up, and we will tap into that. All I've got to do is provide an alternative that speaks to the need for change."
Perhaps. But there's plenty of room to question whether a late starting, low budget Tyree campaign is really providing an alternative or whether Mayfield is even on the radar screen. And if Ashe's opponents go into attack dog mode, the mayor didn't get his nickname Bulldog for nothing. "If they drop some heavy negative stuff, and we have to respond we will. But we would prefer not to do that," Ashe allows.
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