How Not To Be Mayor
Let’s start with the announcement rollout on Monday by Charles Potter and Dennis Williams – as I noted in my Sunday post, the Williams announcement was expected sometime this week. Yet Monday afternoon, Potter sends an email to his list declaring for Williams’ Representative seat, clearly catching Williams off-guard (see Esteban Parra’s article here). Since the cat was out of the bag, Williams gets himself on Rick Jensen’s show to announce. Odd, right? The usual thing is something more like Bobby Marshall’s announcement more than a year ago. But it has been noted that Williams didn’t look ready and it looked like Potter forced his hand.
There’s a great deal of cliquishness among Wilmington’s political class and you probably need some of that backstory to understand what is going on. Ted Blunt (former City Council President) was making his moves to announce for Mayor. Once Williams choose back in the late winter or so to tell Bob Gilligan he was staying in the GA, he promised Blunt his support (if not outright managing his campaign) – support that Blunt was counting on. The last time Blunt was in the public eye, he had crashed and burned pretty spectacularly in his Lt. Governor bid. Williams’ support would give Blunt a pretty big boost into a pretty competitive place.
So when I tell you that Potter and Blunt don’t exactly get along, some pieces start falling into place, right? As I hear it, Potter wasn’t happy with Williams for supporting Blunt. Besides, Potter had been telling some people and hinting with others that he wasn’t running for City Council again. The CW for some time has been that Potter was going to run (there’s even been a campaign committee formed) for the Senate seat now held by McDowell. Redistricting got in the way of that and Potter was written out of McDowell’s district, leaving Potter looking for something else to do. Running against Margaret Rose Henry was apparently out of the question, so Williams’ Representative District was what was left. So Potter and Williams came up with this plan to revive Williams’ Mayoral bid, with Williams’ basically anointing Potter as his successor.
Since the announcement, Potter has been calling other public officials – including some who could still get into the race for either Mayor or for Williams’ rep seat – telling them that he (Potter) was going to be the next Rep and conveying outsized expectations of support. This isn’t leaving alot of goodwill in its wake.
I’m going to go back to the thing I’ve been saying since I did the first Cattle Call article for the Wilmington Mayor’s race – people in this City are angry and disappointed. And one of the biggest reasons why they are angry and disappointed is because there are major bits of its political class who are vastly more interested in tending to their own ambitions and business than they are in getting the people’s work done. This kind of thing – picking your own successors and obviously working on your own interests – is the kind of thing that people here are *already* mad about. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Potter was Ground Zero of the City Council’s opposition to reducing the size of Council (even though there is plenty of popular support for this in this age of austerity).
This City really does deserve much better than this – and really won’t be able to thrive until the influence of its more self-serving elements are greatly minimized. I’ll say again – if you live in the City and have been thinking about how to change it all, now’s your chance. There won’t be a better chance to change City Council AND the Mayor’s office than now.
Tags: Mayor Race
As a non-native-Wilmingtonian, I’m genuinely curious about the unspoken race dynamic at play here. It seems like the city’s “political class” is largely composed of members of a small group of black families – the Holloways, the Potters, the Blunts – and assorted others whom you never see or hear from except at election time. Are there whites who pull the same stunts, or is this cliquisheness you cite largely limited to the black community?
Dennis Williams will be the next mayor of Wilmington, which is a good thing, I suppose, as he’s the only person Cass mentioned who has a functioning brain in his head.
I disagree with Geezer. I think Paul Calistro gets in and wins.
I hope AQC is correct.
Excellent blogging.
Just what we need in the State House – another crook, this one named Potter.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with Geezer, Williams has done real damage to his campaign at the very moment of takeoff. Damage that makes him more vulnerable to a successful primary challenge.
By concocting this move with Potter, he has unnecessarily pissed off a whole lot of people in his VERY OWN RD, his presumed base of support, by openly backing someone as his would-be replacement.
I’ll talk a whole lot more about this on today’s Al Show. Should be lotsa fun.
Dennis Williams came on the show and said that he and Potter cut no such deal.
Yes, he had spoken to Potter but, no, he didn’t offer him an endorsement. Said he was totally surprised by the Potter letter, that he had planned to announce on Nov. 1, and that he had planned to talk to Speaker Gilligan and the caucus prior to that date.
If you miss the Al Show, especially with El Somnambulo, you might miss a lot…
I guess Charles Potter deserves his own version of the Norm Oliver rule: Whenever there’s a screwed-up situation involving Norm Oliver, you can’t over-estimate how much of the fault is Norm Oliver’s.
Yes, he had spoken to Potter but, no, he didn’t offer him an endorsement.
There’s endorsements and there’s political partnerships. What is amusing about living in such a small and insular place as Wilmington is that people saying one thing and then doing something else can be so readily apparent. But then, you’d have to have a window into it to observe the behavior. So this is cool. On record and will need to be circumspect. *That* will certainly be new. But that just means we have that much more to watch for, yes?
So cut the coy crap and tell us whose side you’re on.
There’s nothing coy here — if there was something you wanted to know, you just have to ask. But I’m NOT supporting any of the folks I mentioned in this post, that’s for certain.
Gosh — who didn’t you mention? Are you supporting anyone?
Sorry about the coy comment. I guess that since I can’t tell the sides apart, I couldn’t make sense of it.
Dennis Williams is a racist jackass. Ask any non-black person who worked w/ him at Downtown Visions or whatever they called it in the early ’90s.
That said, he really can’t be much worse than our current mayor, who has done NOTHING as mayor & is an arrogant prick of a man.
Jeese Anon… You woke up on the wrong side of the racial bed or something. Each comment is tinged with racial statements. Relax buddy.
As to your first question of whether political families are just segmented to the black community…. I don’t see this strict family structure of politics that you’re elluding to in the black community, and I certainly don’t see it being more prominent in Wilmington than it is in other place in Delaware or the rest of the country.
I think political families are a mainstay in all politics regardless of race. Biden, Du Pont,….. the handful of legislators in Dover who have replaced their deceased spouses, aside from the late Hazel Plant all of those families are white.
The Blunt Family? I don’t know if you can classify that as a political family? One of his daughters is active, but has never run for office and currently works for a non-partisan non-profit. His wife was forced to run for city council for party reasons but has never really been a political powerbroker.
Of course Mr. and Mrs Potter would qualify.
Herman Holloway Jr is very involved and active in the community, but his level of “political power” in Wilmington is in question. I mean, he’s a Republican in Wilmington….. Not necessarily a powerful party in this city.
Do political families exist?…. Of course they do. Are they segmented to one race or one city?… don’t be silly.
Herman Jr. is an R now? Must be looking for some Michael Brown-type windfall.
BTW, there’s no such thing as a Michael Brown-type windfall…
But maybe he can get in on Stormin’ Norman’s action…paging Charlie Copeland.
Well to be honest El,
Technically he’s not an R. But if you recall a few years ago the state’s Republican Party did endorse Herman in his race for City Council President. So I’m considering him Republican by association.
Seems to me based on How Not to Be Mayor that the profile for the next Mayor must be a radically different individual. Our next Mayor cannot have an agenda, must continue to work for the betterment of the community and others, must continue to be focused on the quality of life and economic viability in the City of Wilmington, and be willing to invest 200% to succeed. There is only one name on the list: Our next Mayor = Paul F. Calistro Jr.
Not taking sides here, but I think a prospective mayor should have an agenda–otherwise what would they propose to do as mayor?
Yeah, right. Maybe he’ll ride into office on a unicorn.
It’s not impossible. But it is magical thinking.
Charlie Copeland has a regular Sunday AM gig on Channel 28 at 9AM. During her campaign, Rollins donated a bunch of money for one of Twin Brown’s projects – an Audio Visual studio. There’s been a consistent outreach to the GOP from some of the fringier black leaders who seek a convenient money stream.
As for Dennis Williams running for mayor, I believe both he and Potter called Sills last Sunday within minutes of each other to ask for support for their prospective campaign. Word traveled fast and Norman Oliver broke the news about Dennis on his show that night. Then, of course, Potter shot himself in the foot by getting the News Journal story out ahead of Dennis even telling his caucus.
And, for entertainment purposes only, there’s a rumor circulating that cousins Dennis Williams and Charles Potter really are just trying to squeeze Ted Blunt in the short term. Since Blunt is admittedly the annointed DEM party favorite, Williams figures he can’t get any real leverage on Blunt unless he announces a primary candidacy so Blunt will come to him for a deal.
The rumor goes that Blunt and Williams can’t run in a DEM primary without splitting the black vote and the possibility that one of the white guys can win. If Dennis ducks out, my source says look for his kid and wife and Potter’s kid and wife getting jobs in Blunt’s administration.
People always speculate heavily when it comes to Potter and Williams. I myself have often told Dennis Williams to run for mayor because he’d be great for the city and he always said he wasn’t interested. Who’d give up a cosy uncontested and well-seasoned House seat for the problems in Wilmington? Just sayin’.
Ted Blunt would be the worst possible choice for mayor, outside of one of the actual lunatics. A list of his accomplishments would fit on the head of a pin.
Since Blunt is admittedly the annointed DEM party favorite
This is *really* wrong. The DEM party in the city at least hasn’t exactly coalesced around anybody which is why this thing is fairly open. And one of the reasons Blunt decided to actually get in was stated support from Williams.
And I think that Wilmington Wins means that a new mayor needs to come into office without a Cronyism Plan, otherwise known as a hidden agenda.
“a new mayor needs to come into office without a Cronyism Plan, otherwise known as a hidden agenda.”
I doubt any mayor — any elected executive officer, for that matter — has ever gained office without a “hidden” agenda. No politician capable of winning would run for the office without knowing ahead of time who he’s going to hire for key positions and how he’s going to reward key supporters. And none would be chuckle-headed enough to tell the voters all about it before the election.
There’s a difference between running for office specifically so that you can be a river of largesse to a group of supporters and building a plan to govern based upon an assessment of skill sets as you campaign.
Are you saying Baker is a river of largesse to a group of supporters? Which group?