By Suzanne Sprague, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – [Phone rings] Woman Answering Phone: Good morning. Antioch. May I help you? No, he's not in at the moment.
Suzanne Sprague, Reporter: The Antioch Baptist Church on San Antonio's East Side is an icon with the local black community. It is the largest of its kind in the city, with more than 3-thousand members. And given the history of the black church in political organizing, it is a strategic move for Ron Kirk to begin a day of campaigning here.
Ron Kirk, Candidate for U.S. Senate: Next Tuesday can be a historic day for us within the state of Texas, particularly within the Black church and I would hope that everyone would join us and go to the polls and help to make Ron Kirk the next United States senator from the state of Texas [some clapping].
Kirk is preaching to the choir, in a manner of speaking. His audience is a dozen or so San Antonio ministers who bought into his campaign long ago. Reverend Frank Harris says part of the attraction to Kirk is access. He believes Kirk will give African-American clergy face-time if he's elected. And, part of the attraction is Kirk's record as mayor of Dallas.
Reverend Frank Harris, Tried Stone Baptist Church: The fact that he built up the economic climate in Dallas and seems to have brought Dallas together as far as all communities in Dallas, so that's one of the things I like about him.
Sprague: Dallas residents seemed to like him, too. They re-elected Mayor Ron Kirk in 1998 with almost 75% of the vote. But his tenure was not without controversy, which continues to trail him in his Senate campaign.
Avi Adelman, Dallas activist: I'm going to vote for Victor Morales in the primary.
Sprague: Avi Adelman is a registered Democrat and a neighborhood activist in Dallas. He was a bit of a thorn in Mayor Ron Kirk's side, frequently chastising him on his Barking Dogs website.
Adelman: My biggest problem is that when he was mayor of Dallas, all of the big-ticket items for all the small group of "the rich folks" or the well-to-do folks were shoved down our throats. The arena deal, the signature bridges, the Olympics?all of these things had nothing to do with the general city's issues.
Victor Morales has also made an issue of Kirk taking a $200,000 salary from his law firm while he was mayor. But Kirk takes these criticisms personally. He grew up in a modest Austin neighborhood. His mother taught school. His dad worked for the post office. And he aspired to hold public office in a state where his parents were blocked from voting.
Kirk: I did accept the challenges to become a partner in a prominent law firm, so I could put myself in a position to be Secretary of State and be mayor and I did it all so I could be a part of the political process to change other peoples' lives for the better. And I don't think that's anything to be ridiculed. I think that's something to be celebrated. And I think the sum total of that experience is what puts me in the position to go to the people of Texas and say I can be the most effective advocate for you because I have these experiences.
Supporters say Kirk is at his political best when he's telling his own story. Even critics say he's incredibly personable and has a "mind-boggling" command of facts and figures. But as his campaign has evolved, Kirk has taken more pronounced stances on certain issues. At a recent debate with Victor Morales sponsored by the Dallas Democratic Forum, Kirk advocated abortion rights, more federal spending for day care and stronger enforcement of the Clean Air Act.
Kirk: So we need more cooperation, perhaps tax credits for investment in cleaner technology, particularly as it relates to manufacturing, and we have to do a lot more education about what we can do behaviorally to lessen our negative impacts on the environment.
Sprague: But as he answers more policy questions, Kirk opens himself to more criticism. Although he supports cleaner air, Kirk has said he would have rejected a recent proposal to increase fuel efficiency standards. Victor Morales says he would have supported the measure, which failed in the U.S. Senate. And Kirk's tenure as Dallas mayor doesn't get high marks from environmentalists like the Sierra Club's Rita Beving, who recently called in to 90.1's The People's Agenda.
Rita Beving, Sierra Club: There was a resolution put forward by Laura Miller to try and get the city council to urge DART to buy their new fleet of buses as natural gas buses and Mayor Kirk did not try to push that, endorse that and the resolution never went forward.
Sprague: Still, the Democratic leadership in Texas is almost universally betting on Ron Kirk to win Tuesday's runoff election. Although the party doesn't take sides in a primary, a number of officials past and present have endorsed Kirk, including former Dallas County Democratic Chair Lisa Payne.
Lisa Payne, former Dallas County Chair of the Democratic Party: He's going to be able to campaign and get statewide support, national support, something that Victor Morales has proved in his past races he's not able to do.
Sprague: Payne led the party in Dallas during Morales' two previous campaigns for the U.S. Senate and Congressional District 5.
Payne: Unfortunately, Victor was very unwilling to work with the party. As much as he wanted to go around saying that the party wouldn't help him and the little guy and the independent, it was him that rejected all offers of help.
Sprague: But Morales won both of those primary elections and finished first in this year's Senate primary. Many analysts attribute his success to the Hispanic vote.
Chuck MacDonald, Democratic Consultant: That is absolutely a concern and that is frankly what Victor Morales has going for him.
Sprague: Chuck MacDonald is a political consultant in Austin. He's backing Ron Kirk, but he adds Kirk's campaign has its work cut out for it when tapping into Hispanic support.
MacDonald: They're going to have to sit down, identify every contested runoff in the state?and then they're going to have to make those counties a priority.
Sprague: That was an obvious part of Kirk's campaign strategy when he visited the United Farm Workers offices in San Antonio earlier this week.
Henry Cisneros, former San Antonio Mayor: Our next U.S. Senator. Take a good look at him. This is what a U.S. Senator looks like. U.S. Senator from Texas, Ron Kirk? [Cheers of "Viva Kirk!"]
Sprague: That's former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros. At the UFW press conference, Cisneros said Latinos may be tempted to vote for Victor Morales because he is Hispanic, but there'll already be a major Latino candidate on the November ballot: gubernatorial hopeful Tony Sanchez.
Cisneros: In the spirit of inclusiveness, in the spirit of Cesar Chavez doing his work at the same time as Dr. Martin Luther King in America in the 1960s, in the spirit of our communities coming together, in the spirit of understanding how we have to share and create that broad inclusiveness, I say to you here and now: it is the right thing for you to do to vote for Ron Kirk. I am proud [cheers].
Sprague: There were more cheers as Kirk told the crowd of two-dozen supporters that he opposes a recent Supreme Court decision that denies labor rights to undocumented workers.
Kirk: I want you to know, Rebecca; I want you to know, Jaime, that I will not stand for that [cheering]. We will work to make sure that we will not encourage by the laws of this country the exploitation of undocumented workers. It is wrong. It is inhumane. It is un-American.
Sprague: But for many workers, like UFW member Jerry Arispe, the real reason to vote for Ron Kirk is that Victor Morales won't talk to them.
Jerry Arispe, Chicano activist: He has not called us in reference to our cause or our issues, which are very important to us. And if he would, I'm open, I'm flexible, I can listen to either one, but so far the only person who has come to us is Ron Kirk, so I believe that would be our candidate.
Sprague: And this is the image Ron Kirk is hoping to project: the candidate who wants the job bad enough to listen and campaign. But turnout in a runoff election is often very light. So the question facing the Kirk campaign is whether Democrats want him bad enough to go out and vote. Early voting ends today. The election is April 9th. For KERA 90.1, I'm Suzanne Sprague.
To contact Suzanne Sprague, please send email to ssprague@kera.org.