Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

US & Int'l Papers

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Small Time Race; Big Time Politics

Monday May 14, 2007

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Dear Mr. Mullings

The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that in the 11-way race for Mayor, no candidate had achieved 50% and therefore there would be a run-off between two guys I've never heard of but I'm sure are qualified to serve as Mayor of the ninth largest city in the US.

In Texas, municipal elections are non-partisan (which is often laughable as everyone knows who the Democrats are and who the Republicans); and in Dallas the municipal elections are held on Saturdays.

Saturday elections are yet another example of a reform which has sailed over its own torpedo. The theory was that by having elections on Saturdays, people wouldn't have to "take off from work" to vote.

According to the Associated Press, "Less than 13 percent of registered voters cast their ballots Saturday."

The reality is that by having elections on Saturdays, people who would have been happy to "take off from work" won't take off from ferrying the kids to soccer, Little League, softball or Spiderman 3; running errands, shopping, or doing just about anything other than voting.

Also, if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, then there is a (usually ugly) run-off between the top two vote-getters.

According to the Dallas Morning News, the two top finishers got 27% and 21% of the 71,000 votes cast.

Reading that piece got me thinking about the race for Mayor of Dallas back in 1991. Let's get Mr. Peabody to rev up the Way Back Machine and �

I, being a man of the 90's, was eager to support her career and, along with The Lad, moved from Your Nation's Capital in that year because the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices had been transferred to Dallas by EDS (the company which had been founded by Ross Perot).

Unlike the current McCain-Feingold era when there is so much money in politics that political types can make a decent living all the time, back in those days political income was a sine wave: High in the even numbered years, low in the odd.

1991 being an odd numbered year there was not much on the horizon so I found myself talking to the folks the headquarters of Steve Bartlett's campaign for Mayor talking to them about being the campaign press secretary.

Steve Bartlett could have easily, like most of the current crop of Presidential candidates, held onto his seat. He could have shown up on the floor for votes once in a while and appeared at committee meetings when a high value witness was testifying. Instead, he resigned as a Member of Congress to run for Mayor.

I had known Bartlett from the time when Newt was Republican Whip, I was his press secretary, and Bartlett was a regional whip.

The Bartlett for Mayor staff said that they couldn't possibly afford me. I reminded them that we were in a year which was not evenly divisible by two, and a deal was struck.

I tell you all that, because I want to tell you who was involved in that race:

Steve Bartlett was a Member of Congress and is now the President of the Financial Services Roundtable.
One of the chairmen was Jim Oberwetter. Jim has just completed a very important, difficult, but successful tour as the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
The Finance Director was Jeanne Johnson Phillips. Jeanne ran the 2001 Bush inaugural and got high marks having served a term as the US Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which was the successor organization to the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.
The Scheduler was Cindy Schneible who is an executive with the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
The Communications Director was Karen Hughes who, as you know went on to be Counselor to the President and is now the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy.
And me.

During the 2000 campaign, Ms. Hughes generously allowed to the national press corps that I had taught her much of what she knew about being a campaign press secretary.

Any time Karen did something which irritated the media they would ask me if that was something I had taught her.

My consistent answer was: "Yeah. That was mine."

The moral of this story is: You never know what your job will lead to, so do it well.

On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Dallas Morning News and Mr. Peabody; a sweet Mullfoto from New York City Sunday and an amusing Catchy Caption of the Day.

ALSO Dear Mr. Mullings. New Every Friday!

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