OK, guess I should put in my 2 cents on the Mayoral election. Ed Oakley, whom I supported ran a clean and good campaign, and as an openly gay candidate he made me proud. His ideas to improve the city of Dallas are tested and have been proven during his terms on the city council. Tom Leppert is an unknown factor. A Highland Park resident until recently, he out spent Oakley and essentially bought the election in South Dallas. North Dallas was assaulted with anti-gay robo-calls which he denies he placed, but who else would benefit from them?
The anti-gay thing was no surprise. It was an easy strategy for the homophobic North Dallas fundamentalist crowd. It’s the South Dallas money politics that bothers me. Look at the history of the black vote in Dallas. Often it was delivered as a bought and paid for commodity by power brokers who would “consolidate” votes in majority black districts. It was old school politics with a reverse Jim Crow twist. Seems like it still works today.
The difference is that this time, South Dallas voters were lured by promises of riches, with no actual proof on the table. Leppert is a businessman, and in today’s culture of the “Idol” rich, he has made promises to bring wealth and prosperity to the poor neighborhoods of Dallas. Strangely he also claimed to be able to improve education. Last time I looked Dallas has an Independent School District and the Mayor has zip for control of that.
Dallas voters have bought the pig in the poke, albeit an apparent rich one, but still a complete unknown quantity. What a pity. Ed Oakley would have been a great mayor for Dallas, but some folks apparently thought who he slept with in his bedroom was more important than the future of the city
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment