Comfort or connection?

Iwas privileged to engage in phone conversations Monday and Tuesday with—in order of their returned calls—Frank Scott, Warwick Sabin and Baker Kurrus.

I can reiterate that which is well-established—that there’s not a bad guy or unworthy mayoral prospect among them.

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Scott said his runoff with Kurrus is all about keeping on keeping on. As the best politician in the field—and the best politicians usually win political races—he asked for my vote.

Sabin said he wouldn’t make an endorsement in the runoff. He was in a better state of mind than I expected, considering how hard he’d worked and how close he’d come. He said he’d left it all on the field and had consoled the distraught pizza delivery guy at his stoop Saturday night.

Kurrus said his runoff theme is to refine and drive home his message, which, he said, is that he’s the real change agent in the race.

Say what?

It turned out that, on this day when we spoke, Kurrus had launched a social media campaign with his runoff message, which was change.

He and his political advisers seemed to have conceded that this notion of Kurrus as the establishment favorite—a notion I’ve done my best to advance, owing to its accuracy—needed to be confronted and overcome.

That led to the most interesting conversation of the three—the one with Kurrus—considering that I’ve tagged Kurrus essentially an incumbent, a better Mark Stodola. That’s based on his support from current City Board members as well as his muted response on some issues, such as city police corruption as alleged in exposés from The Washington Post.

Sabin offered bolder generational change and more friction with the board and city manager. Scott offers inherent change championing the city’s neighborhoods of disadvantage, disconnection and distrust, which gave him massive margins in the first go-round even as he preached citywide unity.

Kurrus told me I was mistakenly conflating his support from persons now holding city offices with supposed protection of the status quo. Real change, he said, is less about personnel than what the personnel accomplishes.

He said real change will start with the new mayor’s asserting a chief executive officer’s authority over the city manager and effecting that authority by budget cuts to consolidate the mayor’s and city manager’s staffs. Real change would come, he explained, from having the support of the City Board for enactment of that asserted authority and the budget to back it up.

So, Kurrus’ argument is that support from members of the City Board, rather than representing inertia, will endow him with the necessary political backing to deliver the most basic and major change.

“There, you’re starting to get it,” Kurrus said.

Well, at least I was verbalizing it, which was something.

I asked Kurrus about his muted and process-driven statement—as if straight out of City Hall—in response to The Washington Post’s revelations and allegations about abusive noknock police warrants targeting minorities based on bogus drug tips from dubious informants.

“I can’t help it—I’m a lawyer with human resources training,” Kurrus replied.

He said he was outraged by what he’d read and seen in a video on the Post website of the police blowing open an innocent man’s apartment door. But he said the only way to proceed with an investigation and potential disciplinary action is to follow due process assiduously and not risk the appearance of pre-judging the matter.

Spoken like a splendid city attorney rather than a candidate for mayor.

“I’m not a politician,” Kurrus said. It was the politic thing to say.

Scott arguably over-reacted with a letter asking the Justice Department for a federal civil rights investigation. But Kurrus understated. The guy who got it just right—he fell 600 votes short and is consoling the pizza delivery guy.

The remaining choice for Dec. 4, then, is between a spirit of change in a candidate inherently offering hope and inspiration to persons long lacking hope and inspiration—that’s Scott—against a thoroughly experienced and supremely competent budget-master—that’s Kurrus—who says change comes from well-executed public policy action and the hard work he’ll start moments after his swearing-in when he calls in the city manager to say there’s a new mayor in town.

In the first go-round, Kurrus led the voting in west Little Rock and the Heights. Scott led the voting in eastern, southern and southwestern Little Rock.

Put another way: For those who are comfortable, Kurrus is the comfortable choice. For those who are disconnected, Scott is the connection.

The runoff will come down to whether more comfortable people or more disconnected people vote.