On Friday, February 24, Tishaura O. Jones added an important name to her long list of endorsements from prominent local progressives when state Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. endorsed her for mayor.
Franks’ support could be critical, since he represents a new kind of black candidate with strong support from a diverse group of progressives – perhaps the only kind of black candidate who can win the March 7 Democratic primary, where one electable white candidate, Lyda Krewson, faces three electable black candidates in Jones, Lewis Reed and Antonio French.
“Her coalition is really similar to my coalition,” Franks said of Jones. “It’s a lot of the same people. But you can’t have that excitement without the right candidate. I think she is the right person.”
Asked why, Franks said, “She has the right energy, and she’s an unorthodox candidate that people can relate to.” He said the relentless negative coverage of her campaign by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch may have helped Jones, given what the public learned about her in those stories – that she struggled financially as a young person, filing for bankruptcy in 1999, and that as St. Louis treasurer she did bond business with a firm that employs an ex-felon (who went to prison for misdeeds committed back in 1995 and has been a banker in good standing for decades).
“I think a lot of people could relate to her when those hit pieces came out,” Franks said. “Like, bankruptcy – that reminds me of my aunt, who went through bankruptcy. Or doing city business with an ex-felon. We talk about recidivism and reentry, but she actually gave somebody a second chance. And this was the same person who banned the felon check box for hiring in her office. She practices what we progressives preach.”
Franks was asked why Jones nearly swept local and national progressive endorsements, when Antonio French, who achieved national recognition from Ferguson and takes many progressive stands, was expected to compete for them.
“Antonio is one of the smartest politicians I ever met, but he made a couple of decisions that hurt him,” Franks said.
Most damaging with progressives, Franks said, was French voting against a $15 minimum wage in the city; French argued in an op-ed in The American that, unless St. Louis County also increased its minimum wage, businesses that provide needed services would leave the city for the county. “A lot of people didn’t agree with him on that,” Franks said.
Also, French took a paid position with the Hillary Clinton campaign in her Missouri primary campaign against Bernie Sanders, the progressives’ candidate. “He chose basically the status quo in that race,” Franks said of French, “which kind of confused people.”
French was asked about U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay – who endorsed Mayor Francis G. Slay over Lewis Reed four years ago – endorsing Reed over two younger, more progressive black candidates. Frank said it only hurt Reed among progressive voters.
“I spoke with a good portion of my district and those who supported me, and for people who were on the fence or undecided, that endorsement kind of sealed the deal with them in terms of dropping Reed,” Franks said. “They saw how Clay implemented himself in my race and didn’t agree with what he did in my race.”
Clay sided with incumbent Penny Hubbard when Franks successfully challenged her for the 78th House District – and won a special election by a crushing margin 76 to 24 percent, after exposing irregularities in the use of absentee ballots employed by the Hubbard campaign in their August 2 primary.
“Clay did robo-calls where he lied that Republicans put me up to run against Hubbard to push a voter ID agenda,” Franks said. “He wrote a letter to the U.S. attorney general trying to stop our election. He never even talked to me about what I saw or discovered with the absentee voter thing. He just took sides and attacked.”
Franks said that reputation follows Clay in the city now and limits the value of Clay’s endorsement.
“A lot of people thought in endorsing Reed that Clay is again going with the status quo in the mayor’s race – when the city wants change,” Franks said.
Franks said the new coalition that helped him demolish Hubbard by a 76 percent to 24 percent margin could be energized to lead a progressive candidate to a citywide victory on March 7, even in a crowded field with one consensus white candidate.
“We have the power to do it,” Franks said. “There is a new energy, a new atmosphere, a new pot of voters. Not every candidate is picking out of the same pot like in past elections. In our race we had over 1,200 more people turn out in the primary than before. Those people are out there.”
So what is the winning strategy on March 7 for a progressive candidate for mayor?
“You’ve got to reach the people that everybody forgot about, the disenfranchised voter who never voted a day in their life, like me four years ago,” Franks said. “Usually campaigns go after usual voters, but you need to go after other voters too. There are tens of thousands of registered voters who never vote and are all too often forgotten. You’ve got to go into the cracks and crevices of our neighborhoods and find out who they are and what’s important to them and speak to that. I’ve seen that from Tishaura more than any other candidate.”
