The mayor’s race thus far
The most talked-about topic when politically minded people get together in Little Rock these days is the mayor’s race.
People say they really like Frank Scott. They say they had high hopes for him as the city’s first popularly elected Black mayor. But they say he may not be up to the job.
They say all these gun crimes are frightful—there were five more victims over the weekend—and complain that Scott won’t get rid of the police chief who has ruined morale among officers.
You hear that the mayor seems imperious with the personal security detail no other Little Rock mayor ever had. And there are complaints that his central office has been expensive, arrogant and controlling. His relations with the city directors are generally cool on the left and hostile on the right.
He ran to be a new kind of strong mayor. It appears the city never asked for one.
People believe they sent Scott a message with the resounding defeat of his tax package, but that he doesn’t appear to have received it.
Scott responds almost dismissively. He likens his troubles to ones common to bigger-city mayors. He says all cities are having crime problems with the ready availability of illegal guns for alienated children.
But that strikes some as excusemaking or buck-passing.
He talks about beefing up the police department, paying overtime and establishing special street units. But then he talks about root causes of crime and the need for early childhood education.
That strikes some as his not getting the message—which is that the problem is crime and internal police problems, which are his responsibilities. People figure the school district can tend to early childhood education. Scott is the first mayor to assign himself a public-school role absent formal authority or responsibility.
Scott accepted the security detail early in his term based on threats against him. It is likely that he receives more threats than past mayors because of his profile and our troubled time’s new levels of racial hate and meanness. But the appearance of imperiousness is always troubling in politics. That’s especially so in an era of budget constraint and resentment.
Crime is where the mayor’s car-dealer main challenger, good ol’ boy Steve Landers of TV commercial prominence, wants the conversation to start and pretty much end.
Otherwise, Landers has been on Twitter pointing to a pothole, presumably to say Scott did that.
The police union has endorsed Landers already, not bothering with the actual filing period, other prospective candidates or a campaign-season interview process. It’s less a police endorsement of Landers than a police nomination of him.
The police union detests Scott’s police chief, Keith Humphrey, for reasons having to do with Humphrey’s style as well as with his being Scott’s man. Scott himself faces resentment from white officers mostly related to his administration’s handling of race-police issues, primarily one tragic shooting.
Even if Scott wanted to replace Humphrey, and I’m not saying he does, he’d be averse to yielding control of the police department to the officers. Little Rock has a crime problem and needs police protectors desperately. But police officers don’t get to run the department.
Conservative-minded voters may not get that. They may not see any contradiction in believing classroom teachers shouldn’t run schools but police officers ought to run police departments.
In the end, this race in November may amount to little more than a replay of the runoff in 2018 between Scott and Baker Kurrus—with Scott getting nearly all the votes of a heavy turnout in Black areas, the opponent getting solid margins in west Little Rock, and white midtown liberals giving Scott a worthy share of their votes.
But Landers should not do as well as Kurrus among white midtown liberals. He has none of Kurrus’ government experience or progressive bona fides.
There is another possibility. It is that this could be entirely a referendum on Scott, his methods and results; that his neighborhood base will not be as inspired after four years of not much payoff; that the western regions may be more motivated than before; that midtown liberals may be highly conflicted by instinctive fondness for Scott, fear of crime, and disappointment in the mayor’s fouryear performance record.
It all could hinge on something we haven’t yet seen—the candidacy of Landers. We can assume he’ll be good on television, possessed as he is of money and a learned camera-friendliness. But there presumably will be candidate forums, many of them, testing his command of specifics, his ability to communicate with extemporaneous persuasion, and whether he, independent of Scott and without a script and camera, can make a credible personal and policy case.
There are other declared candidates and there might be an opening for more. Little Rock needs better than it’s getting, but maybe not what it’s being offered.