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Two perfectly fine candidates, too few distinct differences
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Race
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| Contributor | TX DEM |
| Last Edited | TX DEM Jun 02, 2007 04:18pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Dallas Morning News |
| News Date | Saturday, June 2, 2007 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Attention, people of Dallas: Your next mayor will be a pleasant, decent, dedicated, hardworking, perfectly OK guy. Regardless of the voters' choice, everybody can rest easy on that score.
It's pretty good news to know there are two pretty good candidates in the race.
But don't brace yourself for any explosions. Based on Friday's hourlong debate, these are two candidates separated largely by minor disparities in style, not by major conflicts in substance.
Tom Leppert and Ed Oakley enter the final lap of the race with each man anxious to set himself apart – but not by too much.
Maybe it's unfair to measure Dallas' next mayor against its most recent, larger-than-life leaders, Laura Miller and Ron Kirk – both charismatic, if not universally popular leaders.
Neither mayor, after all, was able to deliver wholesale on this city's perpetual yearning to be "world class," to give it fresh definition or identity. Both found the task to be a lot harder to do than to talk about.
What we heard Friday – and what will be aired on WFAA-TV (Channel 8) at 7 a.m. Sunday – was an oddly benign recitation of general themes and cherished phrases. (Mr. Leppert likes to say he'll "roll up his sleeves" once he reaches the mayor's office, while Mr. Oakley is partial to promising to "focus like a laser beam" on solving the city's problems.)
There were instances of slightly tepid hostility: Mr. Oakley had some uncomfortable moments trying to simultaneously distance himself from and reiterate the points made in an anti-Leppert attack ad his campaign unveiled this week.
Mr. Leppert managed to slide in, if not a knife, at least a slightly pointed object when he observed the giant construction firm he used to head built "schools and hospitals."
"Ed's company builds bars," he said, in a little dig at Mr. Oakley's local construction operation.
Yet I don't think either man genuinely relishes the attack or the angry heat of political battle. Both wanted to come acro |
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