Yesterday we held our primary, as did other states. Richard Gephardt decided to step down, leaving his seat open. 9 candidates stepped up to the plate, including Russ Carnahan (scion of the Carnahan clan that has sent the patriarch to the Governor's mansion and the matriarch to the Senate after the patriarch's untimely death), and one of my students, Jeff Smith. Well, technically he isn't my student...I'm not on his dissertation committee. But he took a class with me, so I'm counting him as one of mine anyway.
Smith was able to be competitive in the face of the Carnahan juggernaut largely for two reasons. Russ is a poor legislator. Has the third worst absentee record in the State House. He's missed a couple of extremely important votes, and the votes he did cast were shaky ones. And Smith has a committed volunteer group, culled largely from the ranks of college students. As this was their first time participating, they were full of enthusiasm and energy...and this was contagious.
An interesting aside--Carnahan was endorsed by a number of African American elected officials. I wish I could've been in on that conversation--his mother was replaced by Jim Talent in the Senate largely because she wouldn't intervene in an intra-city dispute between African American elected officials and the Mayor of Saint Louis. Mayor Slay redrew the aldermanic wards in the city leaving the Board split something like 16-13 white black...even though the black population is technically larger than the white population in Saint Louis. What were the officials promised that caused them to switch gears? The carrot, or the stick?
As of noon CST we still don't know who won. I left the party at somewhere around 1am or so. I'm sure a recount is going to take place, and I expect the candidates to be separated by 1 or 2 percentage points. I wish I could've done more to help Smith out.
As comments go, this will be brief. Certainly there are times when African American politicos hoard the crumbs falling from the table of success. They will often times try to do something to appease those folks that have "taken care" of them in the past, to the detriment of what is now needed for our people. For example there was a legitimate African American Candidate in Detroit for a seat in the State House, however, he lost to the son of a white State Senator. Color has nothing to do with why I am disheartened with this, but when the winner was raised in lansing, convicted of Marijuana possession and is only 21 years of age, how does he seem to be representative of the Northwestside Detroit Community. Quite simply, his father walked him door to door in the community and people voted overwhelmingly for him.
Posted by: mfperiod at August 6, 2004 11:53 AM