The joke I told on my show went something like this.
Slay is so desperate for a hook to get into the African-American community he’s gonna try and make up some fake black-sounding group and then he’s going to use that group to act like he has support in the community. Maybe Slay’s gonna create something as ridiculous-sounding as “Sisters for Slay.”
Then I said, “No, Francis Slay can’t possibly be that transparently desperate.” I was wrong.
One week later, newly minted committeewoman Shameem Hubbard could barely contain her excitement to 140 characters. “It’s no secret” she tweeted. “I’m a Sister for Slay.”
While I understand the excitement of losing your “elected official endorsement virginity,” grown folks still have to have a discussion about the wisdom of this new committeewoman’s choice of giving it up so easily.
The hairdresser from the 26th Ward was not the only political newbie using social media to give big love to Brother Slay.
There were excited utterances bursting off the Facebook pages of the recently sworn-in state Senator Jamilah Nasheed. She used her Facebook page as her own Highway 70 shutdown mega phone. How on did Nasheed go from, “Hey, ho, Francis Slay has got to go!” to “I gave $10,000 to Francis Slay’s re-election campaign”?
Sadly, it’s no real mystery. Political money makes for predictable bedfellows. Being the People’s Senator doesn’t get you the same attention, favor, power and money as being Senator “Cash and Carry.”
On the same day Shameem Hubbard tweeted her endorsement of Slay, her husband, the ethically flexible Rodney Hubbard, got a paid gig as a lobbyist for Paul McKee Jr.’s North Side Regeneration LLC. McKee has given over $40,000 to Slay.
And as The St. Louis Americanreported, Nasheed recently received $25,000 from Rex Sinquefield. And a few days later, according to Nasheed’s post, Slay received a $10,000 donation from Nasheed.
Nasheed would argue that she and she has a plan and that her illogical, manic endorsement of Slay is part of that plan. She would also tell you she was able to devise this master plan because she has cracked the political Da Vinci Code and has politics all figured out.
No, she hasn’t. And neither has the committeewoman from the 26th Ward.
Senator Cash and Carry has figured what so many other political disappointments have figured out – it is easier and more profitable to govern on behalf of the biggest checkbooks rather than on behalf of those who have none.
And the Slay-struck wife of Rodney Hubbard is telling us with her first political endorsement, that no matter how you came by the last name “Hubbard,” the political results are the same.
The Lizz Brown Show can be heard 6-9 a.m. weekday mornings at wgnu920am.com. Email: Lizz@thisislizzbrown.com.
