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The dogs of war have been unleashed and are barking at
Yvonne Harper but Mayor Hicks-Hudson or the Lucas County
Democratic Party may ultimately be the ones who are bitten.
Although Harper received the endorsement for the District 4
council seat from the Lucas County Democratic Party, she
still faces an uphill battle to garner the needed votes from
city council for the formal appointment.
Currently, a majority of
council is not directly affiliated with the Democratic
Party. At the time of the writing of this article,
Councilmen Rob Ludeman, Tom Waniewski, Sandy Spang, Mike
Craig, Jack Ford and Theresa Gabriel are not likely to
support the appointment, leaving Harper short of the six
votes needed to secure the position.
However, this seemingly
insignificant city council decision could trigger a much
wider political war with potentially devastating collateral
consequences, should Harper not get council’s ultimate
approval.
Perhaps, most at risk from
collateral damage is Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson.
If council fails to generate
a majority vote for any particular candidate (as is highly
probable), the mayor would then be required to appoint
someone to the District 4 seat. If she appoints Harper,
Hicks-Hudson most certainly would draw the ire and wrath of
The Blade, who, according to insiders, appears “to have it
in for Yvonne, if their recent articles are any indication.”
Conversely, should
Hicks-Hudson have the opportunity, but fail to appoint
Harper, then the Democratic Party and labor will be “calmly
enraged” for dismissing their endorsed candidate and may,
along with the African-American community, “quietly work
behind the scenes against her” in her upcoming campaign for
mayor.
Those who support
Hicks-Hudson’s mayoral bid see her being put in a position
to appoint someone as a lose/lose scenario. Undoubtedly,
whatever choice she makes would offend either The Blade, the
Democratic Party, labor or a sizable portion of the
African-American community and thus appear to write a death
sentence upon her own mayoral bid.
For certain, there is a wild
pack of unnamed dogs of war that have been recently
unleashed to run for mayor in the upcoming special election.
Hicks-Hudson and council will have to think about politics
in a new way and come up with a wisdom strategy to “cut the
baby in two” in order to separate the authentic from the
pretenders and then “do the right thing.”
Rumors are flying that Sandra
Drabik, the politically conservative widow of the late mayor
Michael D. Collins, has entertained changing her name to
Sandy Collins and plans to run for the remainder of Collins’
term.
The combination of a
disrespected black community and a conservative candidate,
with outstanding name recognition, who comes from an area
with very high historical voter participation and who will
likely have tremendous support from police and fire is not a
formula for success for progressives such as the black
community or the Democratic Party. Especially in an election
where overall turnout is already expected to be extremely
low.
Council will need to rethink
traditional ideas about power and focus instead on the
long-term implications of its actions. In order to do this,
they must understand that the African-American community and
the Democratic Party are mutually dependent. It is best not
to destroy a relationship that is currently fragile at best,
causing a sometimes passive aggressive black community to
become even more apathetic.
We will need each other
again, soon.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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