They entered Shreveport politics connected, and basically they’ll leave that way — one among the most influential ever, the other a blip on the radar who made next to no impact and seems unlikely to do much in politics again.
The Shreveport mayor’s race knocked out the careers both of Democrat Mayor Adrian Perkins — who’ll surrender his post this weekend — and Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver. The latter does have a year to go in his term-limited Senate office, but for all intents and purposes a nearly half-century run (interrupted for eight years) ended with his defeat earlier this month to Republican Tom Arceneaux — his first election loss ever.
City politics were indelibly defined by Tarver’s service at the parish, city, and legislative levels. He was in the phalanx of the first black politicians elected to local office, at a time where blacks didn’t have much economic power yet even less political power.
That facet shaped his politics throughout. In his career, he emphasized ensuring that blacks get a piece of the action much more than following an ideological agenda. For that reason, considered very liberal when first in office, his party has moved so far to the extreme since then that his redistributionist politics seen quite tame now.
Ultimately, that’s what did him in with his bid to extend his political career by as many as seven more years (which would have put him into his eighties in age). In the early years, he could serve as a leader of all black interests, but as black political power surged to surpass their economic power, inevitable fissures and rivalries developed. You either were with him or you weren’t, as any area black politician learned.
So, when the mayoral contest came around and he made the runoff, in the process dispatching Perkins, those black political activists on the outs with him decided they’d rather throw in their lot, at least temporarily, with Arceneaux, thinking they might have more inroads with his administration — and with a greater chance of coming into power in four years — than with Tarver as mayor. Communicating to black voters a preference to vote for Arceneaux was made easier in that the GOP candidate didn’t have the reputation of wanting to divide the pie more in favor of one group or another but talked more in terms of expanding it, which resonated in a city which has seen its fortunes decline precipitously since Tarver began elected service.
This caused enough black voters to slough off of support for Tarver to give Arceneaux a comfortable win. In the case of Perkins, not enough backed him because of the curious indifference he seemed to give the post.
Tarver actually gave Perkins his start. The desire to reverse Shreveport’s decline was as palpable in 2018 as now, when suddenly, just out of law school, Perkins showed up in his home town he had left 15 years earlier. For a short period, Tarver promoted his candidacy until a rupture occurred, souring the veteran official.
Perkins maintained his appeal to the electorate regardless as he could present himself as a youthful and vigorous blank slate into which voters frustrated at the city’s decline could pour whatever hopes they wanted. With a patois about dispensing with politics of the past, he convinced enough Republican voters to touch the screen for him to overcome an incumbent over twice his age.
The illusion shattered from day zero. Even before assuming office he embarked on insider dealing and followed up once sworn in with ethically questionable decisions exceeded only by personnel decisions smacking of rank favoritism consistently over the next four years.
During it all he displayed an attention deficit disorder-like approach to the job, a man-child who seemed more interested in being mayor rather than acting as mayor. No better example of this existed than when he filed for reelection, filling out paperwork so flawed that it landed him in court to avoid disqualification, saved only by an activist decision that disregarded clear legislative intent. In it, this trained lawyer flubbed more than half the questions, any one of which should have knocked him off the ballot.
In a term marked by constant disputes with the City Council if not within his own administration, Perkins’ vision for pulling the city out of decline consisted of long shot dubious economic development home runs and fanciful progressive schemes. The rest of the time he pursued a politics the smacked of insider dealings.
The history of Shreveport ex-mayors is replete with inability to attain anything close to that political power after leaving office. The best any have done in the past 65 years is election as a state representative. Perkins should underachieve as well here. The young mayor to which he often drew comparisons, Democrat Michael Tubbs of Stockton, CA, similarly was run out of office but he has the focus to glom onto other opportunities reliant on taxpayer or philanthropic largesse to propagate his progressive message. All indications are that escapes Perkins, who seems destined to disappear from politics, reinforced by his disastrous showing in the 2020 Senate campaign that clued in early he had no real commitment to improving Shreveport.
Tarver will transition gracefully into retirement over the coming year, with little influence as a result of his loss where his rivals supported Arceneaux and will have far more pull with the city than him. Perkins will disappear entirely, an anomaly within the roster of mayors and one who left the city worse off than he found it.
No comments:
Post a Comment