POLITICS

Near Relations

In the game of politics, borrowed glory counts for something.

When you chair the Memphis City Council, an institution more or less always under the media microscope, you’re going to command a decent share of attention. When your surname is Swearengen, a name that was memorably attached to a judge and to a previous well-known council gure — the late Jim Swearengen and Barbara Swearengen Ware, respectively, both now deceased but still venerated — that’s going to further enhance your public pro le.

And when, on top of all that, you have active connections to the city’s power establishment, you’re in good shape to run a political race in Shelby County. e advantage is magni ed to the degree that people don’t know much about your opponent.

Just telling it like it is: City Council member Jamita Swearengen owns such an advantage, even though she’s running against an incumbent for the o ce of Circuit Court clerk, an obscure but wellpaid position.

At a fundraiser in Swearengen’s honor at the new Hein Park home of consultant Steven Reid on Monday, attendees were asked what they knew of her opponent. Most of them didn’t know the person’s name or even the fact that she was indeed the incumbent, a fact that usually favors a candidate. “Is it something Ford?” one normally well-informed person asked. And her unstated meaning was clear: must be one of the unknown candidates (of whom there have been many) who happen to be surnamed Ford, but are not members of the well-connected inner-city power clan of that name, yet hope to pro t from the coincidence.

No, the incumbent Circuit Court clerk is named Gipson. Temiika D. Gipson. She has been in o ce for four years, having defeated in her party primary Del Gill, a long-term rank-and- le Democrat who has ever been the bridesmaid in election races, and then gone on to edge out GOP incumbent Tom Leatherwood in the 2018 “blue wave” general election. Not only does she hope to pro t from some name recognition herself, she doubtless anticipates some spillover on behalf of her daughter Arriell Gipson, who is running in the Democratic primary for county clerk against incumbent Wanda Halbert and two others — William Stovall and Mondell Williams.

For the record, there are Republican candidates for both of these races as well — Soheila Kail for Circuit Court clerk and Je Jacobs for county clerk.

ough a band was on hand for the event and there was a diverse, concertsized crowd, Steve Mulroy and Lee Harris were not really enacting a do-sido in this shot from last ursday night’s opening of Mulroy’s headquarters at Highland and Poplar. ey were merely exchanging possession of the microphone. But Mulroy, a Democratic candidate for district attorney general, and Harris, who is running for re-election as Shelby County mayor, are mutual supporters and prominent at each other’s events. Julien Harris, the mayor’s son, at right, was an appreciative audience member.

PHOTO: JACKSON BAKER

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