An Open Letter to Mayor W.W. Herenton
Jonathan Lindberg
Publisher, Main Street Journal
www.mainstreetj.com

Mr. Mayor, like most of us, I am sure you watched the concession speech given by Herman Morris. Though his campaign seemed flawed from the start, this speech at least seemed a study in good politics. Mr. Morris called Memphis together and asked that wounds be healed and unified support be given. His campaign was over, fought in fits and spurts, and he had been soundly defeated. So went his speech.

Someone on the other hand had failed to tell Carol Chumney that her election was over. She not only began her concession speech by diving into another stump speech, using the vague campaign rhetoric (better schools, safer streets, better government) that plagued her campaign – but then also seemed to offer her assistance to this Mayor, as if not working with the Mayor over the last four years and losing an election to him should somehow be seen as a peace offering. It was a concession speech that was needlessly harsh and hardly a concession at all.

One has to wonder if Carol Chumney still thinks she is running for Mayor.

And so, Mr. Mayor, after two concession speeches that offered the formality of defeat, it was the hope of this writer, that in the words of former Mayor Hackett just moments before you took the stage, that we would be offered some introspection and reconciliation. That was the hope of this city was we watched your speech.

What we got was anything but. (more…)