VIEW FROM A BROAD

A former Scene editor tries to make sense of this year’s mayoral field — and lands on a wait-for-it deduction

BY LIZ GARRIGAN

Metropolitik is a recurring column featuring the Scene’s analysis of Metro dealings. Liz Garrigan lives in Bangkok, Thailand, and served as editor-in-chief of the Scene well before Nashville was a bachelorette destination.

There is something optimistic about seeing a diverse slate of mayoral candidates representing Black and white, men and women, private sector and public sector, elected officials and unelected alike. Not that long ago, Nashville voters were little more than puppets for a well-connected, well-funded and diverse-poor oligarchy of honky-sauruses who prided themselves on being kingmakers. It was a closed system, a largely unearned patriarchy of gray-haired Brooks Brothers acolytes pre-deciding ballot options for voters.

There has been some progress since in terms of diversity of choice. The late Betty Nixon ran for mayor in 1987, and current Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry, who is Black, narrowly missed making the 2007 mayoral runoff. But until Megan Barry’s election in 2015, Nashville had a succession of white men holding the city’s top office. The most noteworthy deviation from the norm between the time of the insider kingmakers and Barry’s election was that non-native Nashvillians such as Phil Brede- sen, Bill Purcell and Karl Dean (and Barry herself) were able to make their case to the Nashville electorate after notable achievements in the governmental, legal and/or business dimensions of Nashville life.

The pendulum swung back with the elections of native Nashvillians David Briley and John Cooper, themselves the grandson of a previous mayor and the son of a previous governor, respectively. But Cooper’s decision to forego seeking a second term has given way to a field of candidates so legion — 12 aspirants have qualified — that it’s difficult for any single contender to stand apart. Not all candidates are created equal. Bruce Barry aptly characterized the assemblage of hopefuls as representing “tiers of plausibility,” eliminating a solid handful of them in a recent Tennessee Lookout piece as unworthy of discussion, in large part because their fundraising is so lackluster as to indicate essentially stillborn campaigns.

Had the state legislature successfully eliminated Nashville’s runoff vote as part of its coordinated and ongoing reign of overreach and civic malpractice on blue cities, Republican Alice Rolli might be worthy of more attention. But as it is, she is a lite version of David Fox, her treasurer and the failed 2015 mayoral candidate whose candidacy was doomed by his choice to run too far to the right in a city uninterested in red-state politics. Fox, though, at least had the advantage of having served as an elected school board member with policy chops and name recognition. Rolli, who seems to enjoy invoking the name “Bill Lee,” can’t say the same and doesn’t appear to have learned from Fox’s strategic error in the runoff. That’s all we’ll say about her.

As I view this race from across the world more than 13 years since last being a Nashville voter, there seems to be a single common thread among some of the more tuned-in candidates: the message that Nashville has become untenable for its own longtime citizens, that the power structures in place have prioritized NFL franchises, obnoxious tourists and rich West Coast newcomers over public school students, hardworking locals and neighborhood infrastructure. Anyone with even the weakest pulse or a dial-up internet connection can see that these candidates are onto something. If I wanted to move back to Nashville today, I’d have a better chance of being invited to run the chamber of commerce than buying a home in Davidson County. Two years out from a 34 percent property tax hike, this is the issue, and it’s time to seize on it without equivocation.

But of those who are viable — state Sens. Heidi Campbell and Jeff Yarbro, retired businessman Jim Gingrich, Metro Councilmembers Sharon Hurt and Freddie O’Connell, and former economic development guru Matt Wiltshire — only two have had the backbone and the fortitude to oppose the latest illustration of citizen bulldozing and misplaced priorities: the $2.1 billion stadium deal for the Tennessee Titans. They are Jim Gingrich and Freddie O’Connell.

A recent Vanderbilt poll shows that 52 percent of Nashville adults oppose this excessive bequest of public resources, this concrete veneration of pro-business philosophy utterly tone-deaf to voter sentiment. O’Connell characterizes it as “the largest public subsidy in the history of the NFL” at a time when Nashville’s cost of living and quality of life need urgent attention. Gingrich, the retired AllianceBernstein executive, also opposes the deal. Yarbro and Campbell helped pave the way for it in the state legislature, Hurt voted for it in the Metro Council, and Wiltshire is on record in support. Another candidate, Davidson County property assessor Vivian Wilhoite, who has not demonstrated any fundraising numbers yet because she entered the race after the most recent filing deadline, has offered only a non-answer.

Let’s take each of the viable candidates in turn.

Gingrich is among the two best-funded candidates in the race and has funneled $2 million of his own money into it. But no one knows this guy, who came to Nashville in 2018. There are Nashvillians with Moon Pies in their cupboards older than Jim Gingrich’s residential tenure in Music City. It’s hard to imagine him gaining much traction, no matter how much cash he has to throw around.

Wiltshire, meanwhile, has co-opted the blue-and-green campaign colors of former Nashville Mayors Phil Bredesen, Bill Purcell and Karl Dean — no doubt strategically — and has been christened The Chosen One by this city’s fraternity of economic development and chamber apostles. He is a native with a strong résumé who has raised a lot of cash, but how can a candidate support this public expenditure and be simultaneously committed to funding the services that have been overlooked and underfunded over time? He can’t be everything to everyone.

Hurt has the potential to be formidable. She was elected countywide, lives in Bellevue and has worked in North Nashville leading up a Jefferson Street advocacy group. But she has failed to stand out legislatively and voted for the stadium.

Yarbro and Campbell have been mealymouthed and generic in their responses to the issues and have the same problem as the others if you accept the notion that support or opposition to the stadium represents a litmus test for voters. Besides, Yarbro seems estranged from some of his own Democratic colleagues, a number of whom in his delegation are supporting Campbell. For her part, Campbell has run for three offices in four years, which is its own red flag.

That leaves O’Connell as the lone native Nashvillian who wants to prioritize Nashville neighborhoods and fundamental services, who has had the mettle and moral fiber to accept that he might lose support from Captains of Industry for opposing The Big Giveaway — but has done it anyway. He’s not as well-funded as the business candidate, Matt Wiltshire, who has loaned himself $349,000. And as a district Metro councilmember, he has never garnered as many votes as a state senator or a countywide officeholder would. But he is clearly the brainy neighborhood candidate — in the fashion of Bill Purcell — and his allegiance to the prevailing point of view of Nashville voters, as well as his commitment to get the little things right, set him apart and speak to his character and worthiness.

And after all, maybe only dinosaurs remember this, but the last mayoral candidate who looked askance at a Titans stadium deal, Bill Purcell, won the job.