Walt Shepperd is a veteran of Central New York's political scuffle, having covered government and politics in Syracuse for nearly four decades. He is the Senior Editor of the City Eagle and the Mayor of Montgomery Street in downtown Syracuse.
In 1993, the year he upset Joe Nicoletti in the mayor’s race, Roy Bernardi speculated that the person following him into the City Hall top spot would be African-American. He said then that he felt strongly that it would be good for the community.
Nicoletti agreed that it would be good for the community, but only after he had gotten his own eight years in the mayor’s chair. A decade ago, a survey conducted by the Concerned Citizens for Better Government to determine the candidate from the communities of color who had the most crossover appeal found Republican Sandra Townes, the highest citywide votegetter the year she ran for City Court Judge, could be mayor if she wanted the job. She demurred, however, as did City Court Judge Langston McKinney, who ran second in the survey.
Reflecting on the survey, Bernardi listed several public servants of color whom he considered contenders for the mayoral odyssey of 2001. At the top of his list was Sid Oglesby, former county legislator, who announced a Democratic primary bid before bowing out to become Commissioner of Jurors.
His campaign cards read “The Time is NOW!” on one side and “If Not Now, When?” on the other. It wasn’t about him, he said at the time. It was about whether the city was ready for an African-American mayor.
The same wording emerged during the Alphonso Davis campaign in this year’s Democratic mayoral primary. Two other candidates mentioned by Bernardi, Democrat Carmen Harlow and Republican Otis Jennings were also primary contenders this year, but neither overtly played the race card in campaigning.
Anything past A and B is hard to find
Jennings got the Republican and Conservative Party designations, but lost a GOP primary to Steve Kimatian, and will appear on the voting machines’ Row D, the second person of color to make the city’s mayoral ballot. In 2001, Jennifer Daniels pulled seven percent of the vote running as a Green. This year, with candidates of color contending in major parties, access to the process in not in question, but some doubt remains as to the city’s readiness to accept one of them. Although local voters of color are overwhelmingly registered as Democrats, Jennings’ experience may indicate obstacles still in place. Ironically, the attempted cancellation of a mayoral forum at the People’s AME Zion Church by GOVOTE, seemed clearly motivated by the Democrats’ fear that Jennings would take more votes away from Stephanie Miner than from Kamatian.
Ken Jackson, who resuscitated the People’s AME Zion forum, Wednesday, October 28, 7 to 8:30 p.m. at 2306 South Salina Street, near the corner of Colvin, under Urban CNY sponsorship, knows how hard it is for voters to find anything that isn’t on Democrat Row A or Republican Row B. In 1992, when he ran for State Assembly on the Liberal Party line, people told him after they voted that they couldn’t find his name among the maze of levers and squares. This year, Jennings, four rows down and five squares over, will not be the only candidate running locationally challenged. Democrats in Common Council District 1 may think their incumbent Michael Heagerty isn’t seeking reelection. Having failed to check signatures on his nominating petitions, or even sign one himself, his name appears only on the Working Families, five lines down and 12 squares over.
The bottom line and the mysterious mailing
One person who could benefit from minor party placement this year is perennial Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins, whose latest flyer sounds almost corporate in urging voters to pull the level in the last column (12), and “vote the bottom line.”
Occupying the only square on the Green line F also accentuates Hawkins efforts presenting an alternative to incumbent Democrat Tom Seals in the district representing Downtown, the Westcott Nation, Outer Comstock, the South and Southwest sides.
And the most mysterious missive of an otherwise generally dull campaign came through the mail with no return address, urging voters to write in Joe Nicoletti for mayor. “Joe didn’t lose the election,” the flyer insists. “The election is on Tuesday, November 3.” The back of the flyer contains a photo of a voting machine labeling the write-in slots and a voting machine sample ballot emphasizing the location of the slots, with instructions for casting a write-in vote. Close advisors to the Nicoletti campaign are consternated over the source of the flyer, and posters going up around the city.
Maintaining that neither they, nor Nicoletti had anything to do with them, they wonder if it might be a Republican dirty trick, or an unauthorized drive by a few Nicoletti supporters acting on their own. The inclusion of party lines for Constitutional and Socialist Workers under those for Democrats and Republicans on the flyer’s sample ballot makes it all the more curiouser.
CATEGORY: General Society
TAGS: mayoral race card,syracuse mayoral race 2009,jennings,kimatian,nicoletti,miner,Sid Oglesby,Concerned Citizens for Better Government
