Mayor Willie Herenton celebrates at the Cannon Center after his re-election Thursday night, while expressing disappointment with "some mean-spirited people in Memphis."
Posted on 10/05/2007 10:54:15 AM PDT by SmithL
Despite facing two high-profile candidates, Willie Herenton won a fifth term as Memphis mayor.
Herenton received 43.4 percent of the vote. His two leading challengers trailed well behind: City Council member Carol Chumney garnered 37 percent, and former Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division head Herman Morris obtained 18.4 percent.
Despite poll after poll indicating a three-way split among Herenton, Morris and Chumney, the anti-Herenton voting bloc in Memphis was unable to unite behind a consensus candidate who would have otherwise toppled Herenton.
Instead, voters hoping to oust Herenton and his scandal-plagued administration split their votes between Chumney and Morris.
For that reason, Herenton will reclaim office with the majority of voters having expressed dissatisfaction with him: More than half of Memphis’ voters cast ballots against the incumbent.
In addition, Herenton won with his smallest voter percentages ever, turning the formerly trailblazing politician into a career mayor who has overstayed his welcome with a majority of the Bluff City’s voters.
Among those who wanted Herenton out is Guy Hall, an 82-year-old retiree who served 35 years at the U.S. Postal Service.
Though he now resides in Germantown, Hall lived most of his life in Orange Mound. In previous elections, he supported Herenton. But on Thursday, as voters headed to the polls, Hall stumped for Morris at the busy Raleigh-Frayser Senior Center.
“Herenton did a better job than any mayor that had been in office as far as moving the city forward,” Hall said. “But Herenton is arrogant. He thinks everybody else but himself ain’t got no sense. He wants to be a king.”
(Excerpt) Read more at commercialappeal.com ...
Mayor Willie Herenton celebrates at the Cannon Center after his re-election Thursday night, while expressing disappointment with "some mean-spirited people in Memphis."
He thinks everybody else but himself ain’t got no sense.
Maybe it's the voters that ain't got no sense.
“Despite poll after poll indicating a three-way split among Herenton, Morris and Chumney, the anti-Herenton voting bloc in Memphis was unable to unite behind a consensus candidate who would have otherwise toppled Herenton.”
Lesson in there someplace.
This man will be Mayor until they carry him out feet first or implement term limits. 20 years. Ain’t that a bitch ?
Politics as usual.
Harold Ford, Sr. came to Memphis to cast his vote, even though he has established legal residency status in Florida. Officials are “looking into the matter”.
So this was just another election to pick from a leftist, a socialist and a communist as is the case in most big rat infested cities.
Ick, I don’t want him in this state.
What this came down to is those who would defend Herenton no matter what he did, those who opposed him who were white, and those who opposed him who were black.
“...This man will be Mayor until they carry him out feet first or implement term limits. 20 years. Ain’t that a bitch ?...”
Allow me to add a couple of things to thiat list. His desire to be mayor no longer is there and he quits. Or he is arrested by the Feds. I don’t look for either one of those things to happen. He is now, officially, King Willie. No doubt about that. It’s pathetic how, in a city with some ±600,000 eligible voters, only 165,289 total votes were cast for mayor. Talk about voter apathy. The concrete has dried for Memphis. It is a city that has reached its zenith. It will no longer be able to escape that image. The voters in this city has elected to keep themselves firmly rooted in the past. I forsee Desoto County, Mississippi getting bigger due to the mass exodus that will come after this election.
Harold Ford, Sr. voted in this election. He committed a felony in doing so. He is an official resident of Florida. That prohibits him from voting here. But he is a Ford, so it’ll be overlooked.
Whatever faith I had in the voters of Memphis is NOW GONE. If there is a chance to vote for term limits, I doubt it would pass. King Willie is the poster child for term limits. The citizens of Memphis are quite comfortable with the status quo. So be it. My wife and I are getting out as soon as we can. It is their city now. Let them have it. They deserve it.
I don’t know what the number of registered voters are in the city of Memphis (I don’t think it’s as high as 600k, since that sounds like it would include children under 18). He’s been King Willie since his second term. I suspect the reason a large number of people don’t bother to vote because the choices are so damn poor. Even if we had deposed Herenton, replacing him with a White liberal lady rodent like Chumney is not really an improvement (was replacing Junior Ford with Cohen an improvement ?), because they’re still liberals.
I think Memphis reached its zenith politically in the early ‘70s before the Fords and the well-entrenched corrupt rodentry laid it to waste (of course, even long before that, you had thug rodents like Boss Crump who ran the city, even absent the title of Mayor or Congressman, which he alternately used. They actually “allowed” Black folks to vote, but only as long as they cast them for the rodents they directed them to vote for. Sound familiar ?).
I believe they call US 78 East “King Willie Highway” or some variation on that, in honor of hizzoner, because of all the remaining fed-up White Memphians (those “East Memphis White Debbils” that Senior Ford used to grouse about) who are voting with their feet and driving the short distance down to DeSoto.
I’m not surprised to hear Senior voted (of course, did he actually vote for King Willie ? Herenton made his career opposing the Fords and scaring White folks into voting for him to keep “the family” from completely controlling everything from the Mayorship on down). If he’s prosecuted, I’d be shocked. Of course, if this was a White (or Black) Republican, that would be front page headlines.
It’s sad that it’s going to lose even more of the civilized residents, such as yourself, that could help to make the city great again.
One of my sons is in Memphis visiting our family. What is sad is that I have the same amount of anxiety for him as I do my son in Iraq.
Yeah, in 1968. After the sanitation workers' strike and the MLK assassination it was all downhill.
It shows how fanatical his supporters are when two stories in the CA are “Herenton wins record fifth term” and the most emailed story “Memphis Leads US In Violent Crime”.
This seems to indicate +-460,000:
After the first full week of early voting in the 2007 Memphis elections, a little more than 6 percent of the city’s 460,000 registered voters have cast their ballots.
The anti-Willie vote was split as it always is. We need to go to a primary system for local offices or require run-offs until someone gets 50%+1. Willie will encourage enough to run to split the vote against him every time.
It’s odd, we have a primary run-off for Mayor of Nashville, and I’m surprised they don’t have it in Memphis. We had the unfortunate pleasure of seeing the worst, most left-wing rodent, win both the initial first round, and in a shocker, defeat former Congressman Clement in the runoff, last month. The date of the election ? 9/11. There’s a bad sign right there.
You should have heard Willie’s acceptance speech. You might just make a BARF exception for this one.
We moved to Memphis in 71’. Dick Hackett has been the only decent mayor since.
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