A Mayor Who Gets It
December 30, 2009 Certainly it was not the shot heard ‘round the world, but it was a sonic boom in Memphis.
For the first time since 1991, Memphis has a new mayor. He is A C Wharton and he won a special election in November in a slam dunk, taking 60% of the vote that crossed every socioeconomic line you can draw. Wharton put a whuppin’ on 24 opponents. Yes, that is correct — 24 opponents.
The resignation of former mayor Willie H. Herenton made the special election necessary. Herenton resigned to run for the U.S. House of Representatives, but he’s in the cross hairs of the FBI for a number of reasons, so his run may not happen.
Wharton has been serving as Shelby County mayor since 2002, but I started to pay closer attention in June of ’08 at the opening of the new National Cotton Council offices in the Memphis suburb of Cordova. Where was Herenton when an organization as important as the NCC cut the ribbon on a new office building? Frankly, I could not have cared less. Give Herenton an opportunity to screw something up, and he will. But Wharton was there and he proved to me that he understands the role of cotton.
“I’d like to draw an analogy,” he began, “They say you stick with the one who brought you to the dance. When you look at middle Tennessee, country music and the things that go with it have always been in Nashville. Nashville stuck with it.
“Cotton was what brought the Mid-South its prosperity. But somehow, we’ve drifted away from that. We need to get back to what has really made us known around the world.”
Wharton had just returned from Germany and said one of the things he learned was that you play to your strengths. “Everybody can’t be everything,” he explained. Stuttgart is known for automobiles, Hamburg is a major transportation hub, and Berlin is the epicenter of German culture, politics, media and science.
As an example that applies here, Wharton pointed to biotech and the wonderful things it has brought to U.S. agriculture. “I’m a big supporter of biotech,” he said. “I don’t think Memphis will ever become the biotech capitol of the world, even though we will help advance it.
“But we are known for the cotton we export around the world. Cotton is our strength.”
Finally, a Memphis mayor who gets it. And all of us across the Cotton Belt will be better for it.
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