Last night, all of the heavy hitters, and a few of the spray hitters, in Houston's election for its next Mayor participated in a candidate forum organized by State Representative Senfronia Thompson. On the heels of that I think it's high time to take another look at the candidates and reassess their likelihood of making a run-off.
Unlike my last post on this, I'm going to place the candidates into tiers, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and then (again) provide a sports books odds (my guess really) as to how likely they are to make it into a run-off election. (Which is where I think this is going.)
The Top Tier
1. Sylvester Turner. (-400) Whether or not you agree with Mr. Turner on the issues, and it's sometimes hard to determine whether or not you do because he tends to be rather light on specifics, he is the unquestioned leader in the paddock. Turner has two things that any good candidate for Mayor in Houston wants to have. 1. A natural, unquestioning constituency. 2. Strong political patronage in the form of State Senator John Whitmire.
This dual advantage is being played well and it provides Turner with a key advantage: He doesn't have to get all that specific on the issues because no-one who's likely to vote for him cares. In truth, it's going to be enough that he's seen on the "right side" of a number of items including municipal pensions, HER Ordinance and increasing city 'revenues'. He's also seen as someone who will support the Inner Loop business cartel.
The frustrating thing about Turner is that he's currently being allowed to skate through with little opposition from his supposded opponents. Possibly due, in part, to his political connections, he's not being challenged on some of his more daft statements such as "We must speak out against violence in any form." Ummm..OK, but HOW? And why? Until one of his opponents forces Turner to provide some meat behind his platitudes his lead is unlikely to shrink.
2. Adrian Garcia. (-150) The former City Councilman and former Harris County Sheriff also has what is seemingly an unquestioning group of supporters. Here's a man of little political gravitas whose high-point in elected office appears to be his selfie game on Twitter. Never mind that he had a disastrous partial-term as Sheriff, and that his successor has been forced to attempt to rebuild morale and salvage a department that has been left in shambles, his opponents are not challenging him when he speaks on law enforcement.
In a sane world, the mess that was the Harris County Jail system would be an anchor around Garcia's neck as he tried to float to the top of the heap. In the Houston area, where true leadership is a mirage, he's actually considered a viable candidate. While I don't think he's the shoo-in to make the run off as is Turner, I definitely think he's the 2nd most-likely candidate in the race and one of only two candidates that I give positive odds to.
Garcia doesn't have the natural political patronage that Turner enjoys, but he's going to garner quite a bit of support from the Hispanic community regardless of his record. As with Turner, this allows Garcia to run a campaign without really mentioning the issues. Right now his strategy seems to be to kiss the women and slap the babies while hoping no one notices that his trunk of ideas has cartoon moths flying out of it.
The 2nd Tier
3. Ben Hall (+250) I struggled just a little bit placing Ben Hall this high. Then I realized that, amazingly, he's emerging as the chosen candidate for the counter-conservative GOP movement in Harris County. Given that and his work to gain support from Evangelicals and I think this is about right.
Hall has decided to embrace the anti-HER Ordinance crowd at the risk of inflaming the GLBTIQ community. He's doing this in an effort to grab votes from his conservative opponents, as well as gain key endorsements from Pastors targeted by Mayor Annise Parker as she fought to pass HER Ordinance. Early results suggest that this has been successful, but I'm not sure just how successful they will be over time.
This is especially true when you consider Hall has decided to go against the Police Union which will anger some (although not all) of the conservative vote that he's trying to court. Hall is a candidate that is trying to serve two masters and I've a feeling this, and the fact that he's just not all that strong of a candidate, will cause him to fall short.
4. Chris Bell (+500) I realize what you're saying here. "Wait, Chris Bell?!? THAT Chris Bell?!? He of the 'moonshot for education' and many failed attempts at office?!?"
Yup, THAT Chris Bell. Chris Bell who seems to have around 10-15% of the Inside the Loop, progressive vote just because of name ID. A guy who has never met an issue he doesn't like provided it has the potential to raise campaign funds. A man who has continued to show his illegitimacy as a front-line candidate by focusing on issues that are not of primary import to the long-term health of the city.
That is what Chris Bell has always been, a second-tier candidate with unserious ideas who has been willing to take one for the Democratic team if need be. At some point, I imagine that he'll find a place to run where he's unopposed by a serious challenger and will settle into a cushy government role in the mold of Orlando Sanchez. Until then, he's the humorous candidate in the race, but he does come with a natural constituency (White, relatively well-off, Inner-Loop progressives) so that has to be factored in.
The 3rd Tier
5. Bill King (+750) Right now, I'm struggling to find a path to victory for King. Of all the candidates he seems to have the clearest message (Back to Basics) and a natural constituency (Conservatives) but he has done a horrible job, so far, consolidating both.
My gut feeling is that King is taking certain votes for granted, assuming they have nowhere else to go, something that has already been proven false by some contra-GOP members supporting either Hall or (wait for it) Chris Bell to some degree.
At this point I'm at a loss to say how King makes the run-off considering what's in front of him and his candidacy's seeming unwillingness to play for the win. We've seen the results of the "run for the runoff" strategy (Orlando Sanchez, Roy Morales, although King is a better candidate than both combined) and I think we're seeing a repeat of this here. Were I in the endorsing business, I might give the nod to King, but then again I might not as I've yet to see from him the ability to be the common-sense leader of his campaign that he says he's going to be for the City. As a good friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, stated: (paraphrased) King's seems to be struggling to cover the 'basics' of campaigning, much less governing. Forgetting all of that, I think the conservative split is going to doom his chances.
6. Stephen Costello (+1000) Like Garcia, I think Costello enters this race with more negatives positives and more baggage than any other candidate. He's trying to position himself as a conservative option in a city where he's proven open to crony capitalism on the municipal level (not illegal mind you, just very un-conservative) and he was the primary architect behind RenewHouston, which is a troubling morass of a tax increase that's been slapped down by the Texas Supreme Court.
The most amazing thing? Again, his opponents seem reluctant to point this out. Either they lack the political will to do so or they realize that the presence of a fairly unaccountable slush-fund for infrastructure projects provides a future Mayor with a big political hammer is a very big prize. Unfortunately, for them, it's looking more and more likely that the slush fund will not be around and the Costello campaign will fail to make many waves.
What Costello can do is siphon enough votes from the King campaign to keep a conservative out of the run-off. I don't think this is his goal but I do think its how he's currently positioned and what his role will ultimately be. Saying that however, I'm unsure if the City of Houston conservative voting bloc is a.) big enough to make much impact and b.) organized with enough solidarity to matter.
7. Marty McVey (+Whatever) Give him this much, McVey is hanging in there and he's showing up at all of the forums and he's parroting the progressive line. His problem is that there are four candidates in this race that are a.) more well known in the progressive community than he and b.) much better at this politics thing.
I consider this race political training for McVey, who needs to learn the political truism that you should start small and work your way up. After the Ted Cruz/Senate thing, more and more candidates are jumping in at levels above their station and running for offices they are not ready to occupy. This is NOT an elitist view, but just reality. You deal with the same thing at your job, probably, when 2- 3-year employees suddenly think they're management material.
I expect we'll see McVey running for City Council or some other office in a future election, and given the amount of name recognition he's currently building, I expect that he'll have a successful go at it. Whether or not he'll be very good at the job is another matter entirely.
McVey strikes me as someone who's a little fluid in his political make-up, who's just a bit squiggly on his core values. A lot of his political rhetoric smacks of "me-too!" rather than well thought out, reasoned political thought and he's not near as good as sound-byte politics as Turner or Garcia. He's the long-shot, and I don't see that changing.
As I wrap this up I'd like to remind everyone of a couple of important items:
1. We're a LONG way away from election season. - As a matter of fact, we probably won't see things kick into high gear until after Labor Day.
2. As a result, this could change. - We are 'just one gaffe away' from everything being flipped on its head.
There is a possibility that one candidate will change tactics and begin to hit the others on their weaknesses. If this happens, and if they have enough money and an effective team, then this could turn around. We're sure to see a negative ad before this race is over. I'm betting the Ben Hall campaign launches it, but I've been wrong (many times) before.
