Posted on 06/17/2007 8:36:17 AM PDT by devane617
DALLAS -- In the most expensive mayoral race in Dallas history, wealthy retired businessman Tom Leppert was elected Dallas mayor by a sound margin in Saturday's runoff election to lead the nation's ninth-largest city.
Voters chose Leppert -- an admitted outsider to Dallas politics -- over openly gay City Councilman Ed Oakley, a political insider.
Capping a swift rise from political unknown to the city's top office, Leppert received about 58 percent of the vote in complete but unofficial results in the runoff, winning by more than 13,000 votes.
"I understand the trust and confidence they've placed in me," said Leppert, 53. "I am eager to fulfill that trust and confidence."
Oakley, a three-time city councilman, fell short of making Dallas the largest city in the country to elect an openly gay mayor.
"I can't tell you what it's been like ... to serve Dallas, change Dallas and put Dallas on a path of greatness," said Oakley, who received 42 percent of the vote. "I truly believe I've been part of that."
Leppert, the former chief executive of construction giant Turner Corp., had never run for elected office and never voted in a Dallas mayoral election until this year.
He acknowledges that he had scant name recognition when he decided last year to enter the race to replace Mayor Laura Miller, who was not seeking re-election.
The runoff ends the most expensive political race in Dallas history. Oakley and Leppert were the top fundraisers before the May 12 election.
Oakley had raised about $685,000 from early May to early June. Leppert raised $855,000 and spent about $1.1 million in that period, compared with about $833,000 for Oakley.
Businessman vs political insider, yeah, I would think he is the Republican candidate of the two.
Actually looking again, the eye color is ok but maybe the light paled his skin. He looks all blue eyes and hair on a very pale face.
Nothing wrong but the color. His hair has a green tint and his skin looks yellow. He is a handsome man and retired at 53, probably made a ton of money. Looks good to this old gal.
I know of several folks that would not mind living in Dallas but who wants to pay property taxes to a city that mismanages everything.
It should look somewhat distorted and edgy, it's too small.
(Which isn't to say they didn't do that on purpose...)
Nothing wrong but the color.Are you using a monochrome monitor?
You are correct. I use Corel Paintshop pro X and you have to be careful how to resize pictures. I always make sure I get the image information and then resize it about half of what the number of pixels are. If I want t make it larger I use about 10 to 20 percent
Don’t know. It has a big “W” on it. Huge screen and MSN2 instead of computer.
The above picture appears to be touched-up. Something looks wrong.
&&
Could it be the green hair? ‘Course, these days, who knows? One sees purple, blue, and green hair even on adults.
I remind him that the mayor's job is coming open.
"I think I'll pass on that," he said.
Tom Leppart is on the far right:
![](http://content.ll-0.com/dallaschamber/ssphoto-7.jpg?i=020205113733")
Color may be off but what is with the 70’s nerd haircut?
No the picture is not to small. It's to large. I resized it to 150x150 pixels from the 300x300 pixels
See it's much better
Guess he changed his mind rather quickly....Maybe he saw how weak the competition was; there really was no one that I recall Mayor Laura Miller 'picked' as successor nor were there any really strong personalities ...
Here's who we had run for mayor this time (yesterday was a runoff just between Oakly and Leppart):
-Tom Leppert -City Council Ed Oakley -City Council Don Hill -City Council Max Wells -City Council Gary Griffith -Sam Coats -Darrell Jordan -Roger Herrera -Jennifer Gale -John Cappello -Edward OkpaPer this source: www.ourcampaigns.com
See it's much betterIt's still too light and the color is still off.
And I'm colorblind (I have en excuse for supposedly not seeing the true rendition of an image!)
I guess the REAL story is none of you people have seen him in person or watched him in the debates on television.
This is sorta how the 'truthers' work - take one image and navel-gaze it to death ...
I think it is the mustard background. It’s not green.
Too large dimensions, too small in data size for such measurements.
We’re both right, but I should have been clearer.
I know it was a runoff but he said back in Aug. 06 he wasn’t interested. Thus he changed his mind rather quickly. He has never voted in a Dallas Mayoral race until this year according to another article I read and if I remember correctly from it he’s only lived in the city limits for four years. Nothing wrong with all that and I think a business person with his experience will be good for Dallas if he can survive for a cycle or two.
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