by Joe Sullivan
When City Councilman Steve Hall bowed out of the mayor's race recently, he attributed his withdrawal to an inability to raise enough money to be competitive with front-runner Bill Haslam. "In September, you will probably see a barrage of media hit Haslam's campaign to the point that you'll think he's the only person running," Hall was quoted as saying.
To date, Haslam has reported campaign contributions of $467,000. That's nearly seven times as much as the $71,000 reported by his only remaining serious opponent, Madeline Rogero (though Rogero still has a goal of $150,000). No doubt, a Haslam media blitz will begin to hit the airwaves as the Sept. 30 primary election approaches. It's not beyond the realm of possibility, though, that the blitz could backfire. A perception that he's using his wealthy family's influence to buy the election could just work against him. And Rogero's grassroots campaign can be expected to identify her as the candidate of ordinary folks.
But Haslam is sensitive to this and is already engaged in an intensive grassroots campaign of his own. "It would be totally unfair to say I was just sitting back and planning on a media barrage," he says. "We've knocked on 4,500 doors and we've had more neighborhood events then anybody else. When you talk about grassroots, it's one thing to claim it. It's another thing to show some demonstrable facts. This campaign is about meeting as many people as you can face to face, beginning to articulate a plan and vision for the city and convincing people that you're the right person to lead the city at this point in time."
When it comes to formulating a plan, Haslam is adroit at tying his outreach efforts to his business experience as president of Pilot Corp (a post from which he's taken a leave of absence). "When you spend enough time in enough places, one of the things you learn is that everybody thinks their area of the city or their cause is underfunded. Learning how to see all these needs and balance them is what the challenge is. It's not that different than running a business. The issue is how you balance and prioritize those needs within the city's budget constraints."
Business experience almost becomes the mantra of the Haslam campaign message, encompassing everything from dealing with the city's budget crunch to growing its economy.
Consider:
 "Experience in running a large business is very helpful at this point in time when the city has a large budget, a fairly complicated budget with all the things we're into, a pretty large employee group doing lots of different things. It helps to have managed a large budget and a large group of employees."
"Your ability to attract investment in our town is very important, and I think it's very helpful to sit across from somebody and say here's why you should headquarter your business here and speak from personal testimony."
"One of the next mayor's jobs is to coordinate downtown development to make certain what happens is best for all downtown. You have Kinsey Probasco working on one set of plans. You have Crandall Arambula working over here. You have the transit center. But we need to put all the pieces together into a comprehensive plan, which in my mind definitely includes parking as well, and they need to go forward as fast as possible."
It's almost as if Haslam is trying to co-opt Rogero's mantra, which is planning, but with more emphasis on his management prowess in contrast with Rogero's emphasis on public participation in the decision-making process. Yet Haslam contests Rogero's contention that he'll bring top-down decision-making to the mayor's post, as contrasted with her emphasis on consensus building.
"This idea that a business person makes decisions from a dictatorial basis is an old-fashioned idea," he says. "I think you'd seethe best businesses are run in a much more collaborative fashion to come to the best answer."
For all his outreach efforts and stress on his ability to listen as well as to lead, Haslam's money will clearly enable him to do a lot more talking to the electorate at large during the campaign home stretch. He's retained an Alexandria, Va.,-based firm, Stevens Reed Curcio, to shape his electronic media message. Job creation, and concern for homeowners and home values along with his aforementioned skills will be among its recurrent refrains—all keying to his campaign theme, "It's Knoxville's time."
Haslam naturally disputes any contention that his campaign arsenal amounts to overkill. "The money I've raised isn't extraordinary when you compare it to other recent mayoral campaigns in Tennessee," he says. He notes that Nashville's Mayor Bill Purcell spent more than $1
million and Chattanooga's Mayor Bob Corker spent $650,000 on their campaigns in 1999 and 2001 respectively. Moreover, he points out that Mayor Victor Ashe raised $350,000 in 1987 dollars when he first ran for the job 16 years ago.
Still, it's possible that the Haslam campaign could come on too strong in other ways. One such possibility arose last week when the rumor mill had it that the Haslam camp had demanded that News Sentinel news editor Eric Vreeland be removed from his post because his wife, Emily Jones, is engaged as a fundraiser for Rogero. The News Sentinel did, indeed, shift Vreeland to the sports department for the duration of the campaign on conflict-of-interest grounds. But Haslam insists that, "Neither I nor anyone on my behalf had any knowledge of that."
Barring a major gaffe, Haslam appears to be front-runner in this race between two worthy candidates.
Next Week: Madeline's Song
July 3, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 27
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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