Poor Ron Kirk. It’s not enough that the long-time Democratic Party stalwart stands a good chance of becoming the first black man elected mayor of Dallas.
He has offended the weekly spokesrag for Dallas’ hip, liberal and with-it community, which recently found time between accepting money from girlie joints to take Kirk to task for lobbying for liquor groups.
Don’t worry if this seems mystifying. You have a reason to be confused. This year’s mayoral campaign is replete with all sorts of contradictions, disparities and inconsistencies such as these.
We don’t need a ballot when we vote on May 6; we’ll need a Ouija board.
Consider the case of Darrell Jordan, the conservative, white North Dallas businessman who is, with Kirk and City Councilman Domingo Garcia, one of the favorites to win the election.
Imagine Jordan’s surprise when he picked up Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper, which has traditionally been published by and for conservative, white North Dallas businessmen, to find a pox on his campaign.
Some crack investigative reporting done by DODN revealed that Jordan, who said he was a life-long resident of Dallas, had actually lived in the Park Cities for a number of years.
Even more confusing: This hardly seemed like much of a reason for DODN to criticize someone, since several of its top executives live in the Park Cities.
Then there’s the example of Garcia, the West Dallas Councilman who has a picture of well-known philanthropist and civic leader Pancho Villa hanging on his office wall. Nevertheless, Garcia was endorsed by no less than former Councilman Jerry Bartos, whose approach to law and order doesn’t leave much room for the Pancho Villas of the world.
In one respect, these anomalies are just another play on the old cliché that says politics make strange bedfellows. The catch is that we’re not used to this type of sleeping arrangements in Dallas, where political promiscuity was as unusual as a cool day in July.
The odds of a white, North Dallas businessman such as Jack Evans supporting a black, East Dallas liberal such as Kirk were so long they weren’t even worth laughing at.
But all that has changed.
In fact, this election illustrates just how much Dallas and Dallas politics have been transformed in the past couple of years. When Steve Bartlett was elected four years ago, he had little opposition from other conservative, white businessmen – let alone from the rest of the City that wasn’t conservative, white businessmen.
This time, though, the conservative, white business vote (along with its money) is split between three candidates, two of whom are neither white nor conservative.
It’s not a question so much of race or ideology anymore as it is of practicality. Or, as an old Chicago ward heeler once put it: “Don’t make no waves, and don’t back no losers.”
Still, before your head starts to hurt from all of these twists and turns, remember one thing: A little pain is the price we pay for democracy.
It was easier to figure out what was happening in the good old days, but if they were truly the good old days, we wouldn’t have been so glad to see them go.
