Wharton, Carpenter and "Herentonism"

Charles Carpenter makes the fair point in today's paper that while he is painted with brush of what he calls "Herentonism", that Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton gets a pass. This may qualify as another example of where timing is everything.

One reason the shorthand label is applied to Carpenter -- fair or unfair -- is becase this is his first foray into politics as a candidate. When someone asks, "Who is Charles Carpenter?" -- the first answer is that Carpenter is the guy who managed former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton's campaigns going back to the beginning, in 1991. Another answer is that he is a very successful attorney who grew his business tremendoulsy executing public bond deals during Herenton's tenure. Carpenter's challenge from the very beginning has been to find ways to bring his compelling personal story front and center -- from growing up modestly in South Memphis to graduating from prestigious institutions like Howard University and Notre Dame Law and eventually putting his office in an historic Beale Steet building across from Church Park. The very abbreviated nature of this special mayoral election makes Carpenter's challenge even more difficult; in a regular campaign, Carpenter could have spent the first few months distancing himself from Herenton and the next several months distinguishing himself as a candidate.

It is true that Wharton was Herenton's campaign manager in 1995 and 1999. In those years, multiple people would stand up and be counted as leaders of Herenton's campaigns -- not least, in 1999, one Gayle Rose. But for Wharton, the association arguably helped him when he first came forward to run for county mayor.

In 2002, the perception of local government was such that the City of Memphis was largely considered more fiscally sound, better run and less associated with corruption probes than Shelby County government at the time. Indeed, Herenton would win the 2003 city election with 70 percent of the vote, an even wider margin than the one Wharton ran up in the 2002 county mayoral elections (after crushing Carol Chumney in the 2002 Democratic primary with 80 percent of the vote, Wharton got 61 percent in the general election vs. Republican George Flinn's $1 million-plus campaign).

Seven years later, that dynamic has flipped. It is county government where there appears to be more efficiency and less drama and the city where dysfunction and inefficiency seem to reign. And no matter how much candidates choose to spend their valuable campaign time trying to remind people of Wharton's ties to Herenton, voters have had more than seven years now to judge for themselves what effect it should or should not have on Wharton's reputation. Indeed, Wharton is so confident that voters view him as independent that he felt free to lavish Herenton with praise and offer a strong defense of his 17-plus years as mayor when Herenton left office for good on July 30.

Carpenter has not said and surely would not say whether he intends on also running for mayor in 2011, should he fail in his bid in the special election. But one could imagine him running then without Herenton's tenure looming so large over everything. That or maybe Carpenter could stir things up and run for County mayor in 2010, pointing to his extensive experience with and knowledge of public financing.