By Chris Tucker, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – If you're a hard-core optimist, you're already celebrating because you believe that no matter who wins the runoff, Dallas wins. Tom Dunning can be an effective mayor; so can Laura Miller.
To use Dallas sports metaphors, Dunning is Tom Landry - quiet, clumsy with the media, content to work behind the scenes and share the credit. Miller is Mark Cuban - brash, confident, intelligent and aware of it, ready to break with tradition, comfortable in the spotlight. Dunning says, "Let's work together and get it done as a team." Miller says she too can build coalitions, but her background as a tenacious investigative reporter and a City Council maverick speaks another message: "Give me the ball and stand back." The low-key Dunning might seem dwarfed after the charismatic Ron Kirk, but Miller, despite her potholes-first rhetoric, would make sure the city stayed on the national radar.
The optimist will note that both methods can produce winners. But if you're feeling a bit sour this morning, here's the case for pessimism. For openers, look at last the electoral map. Miller seems poised to be the mayor of mostly white North Dallas, while Dunning wins the hearts and minds of minorities in Southern Dallas. Many of them distrust Miller, who frequently clashed with former Mayor Ron Kirk and wrote slashing journalistic exposes of African-American leaders like Al Lipscomb and John Wiley Price.
So, imagine this scenario: With no school bond package and no Domingo Garcia to lure them back to the polls, Hispanic voters go AWOL in the runoff. Despite a strong African-American showing, Miller wins; but the council's minority members, owing her nothing and safely ensconced in their single-member districts, refuse to play ball with the new mayor - one of whose goals, remember, is to increase the power of the mayor's office.
Cue the fireworks, the profanity, the tirades by Miller and her Council foes. Gridlock ensues. Only the potholes rejoice. And where does it end? If Mayor Miller gets roadblocked by the council, and there is no movement toward expanding her powers, I wouldn't be surprised to see Miller recruit her own slate of council candidates next year, saying to the voters: "Send me some people I can work with."
Throw in last week's bizarre accusations about alleged influence-peddling, and the stage is set for a bitter runoff that could make it harder for the next mayor to succeed. But it doesn't have to be that way if the candidates and their advisers remember that not just winning, but how you win, matters greatly to our civic health.
With this election, as with the state and national elections coming up later this year, let's remember September 11th. Let that tragedy give us a new sense of respect for each other and for our democracy. However they may differ on issues - and often, it's not much - all our candidates should keep in mind that we're united by far more than divides us.
We may have "rivals" and "opponents" in our politics; we shouldn't have enemies. On September 11, we met the real enemy - and he is not us.
Chris Tucker is a Dallas writer and the former editor of D Magazine.