Ex-mayor who made Obama ‘Peanuts’ post running for seat
The former mayor of Arlington who caused a media firestorm for posting on Facebook that President Barack Obama had timed a speech to deliberately disrupt the “Peanuts” television Christmas special is running for office again, this time for alderman. Russell Wiseman was mayor of Arlington from 2003 to 2011, but did not seek a third term. Before being mayor, he was also an alderman, an experience he said would aid him if he were to hold the position again.
Wiseman is running against Dwight Barker, who owns The Segment Marketing Group and has a consulting business. Barker is on the town’s planning commission.
“I wanted to do more for my community and for Arlington, so I saw this as an opportunity to play a larger role and do something great for my community,” Barker said.
Wiseman said he is running for alderman again to ensure that the city enforces its development ordinances. He is currently chief operating officer for City Leasing LLC.
“We are not developing the way our ordinances say that we should,” he said. “We ignore our own rules as far as commercial development goes.”
As for the 2009 Facebook post — in which he also said that Obama is a Muslim (Obama is a Christian) and that only property owners should vote — Wiseman said he didn’t want to comment.
“How you overcome it is not making a big issue of it,” he said.
At the time of the controversy, Wiseman sent an email to the media saying, “I want to take this opportunity to say how much I regret that I offended anyone with my poor attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor amongst friends. While my comments were certainly blown way out of proportion, I do recognize that I allowed things to go too far.”
The town also updated its website at the time to note that Wiseman’s views did not reflect an official town position.
Katherine Burgess covers county government, religion and the suburbs. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.