Memphis City Schools board member Sharon Webb told The Commercial Appeal that she plans to run in the City of Memphis special mayoral election -- if it does indeed happen.
Webb, pastor of Life Changing Word Ministries, ran in 2007 but
finished a very distant fifth with 510 of the 165,397 votes cast (0.33
percent of the vote).
Webb had previously run successful underdog campaigns to serve on the Memphis Charter Commission and to unseat Carl Johnson on the school board.
So add Webb to a field that is getting more and more crowded.
Declared candidates: Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton, Memphis City Council chair and assumed mayor pro tem Myron Lowery, former legislator and City Councilwoman Carol Chumney, Memphis City Schools board member Rev. Kenneth Whalum Jr. and Webb.
All but declared: Memphis City Court Clerk Thomas Long, former City Councilman Edmund Ford Sr., attorney and Herenton campaign manager Charles Carpenter.
Strongly considering: First-term City Councilmen Kemp Conrad and Jim Strickland, former Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division president Herman Morris, Memphis Police Department director Larry Godwin and Memphis wrestler Jerry Lawler.
References to the crowded field often bring laments from anti-Herenton quarters about why Morris and Chumney "selfishly" chose to battle to the end in the 2007 race, with the presumption that if one or the other had not run Herenton would have been defeated and this resignation drama and potential special election would not be happening.
However, that assumes that Chumney would have gotten about 7 of every 10 votes that went to Morris, or that Morris would have gotten 7 of every 10 votes that went to Chumney.
And even making that assumption, it would have been a very tight finish. The mayor still got more than 70,000 votes and more than 42 percent of the vote -- even if a runoff provision was possible, there's no guarantee Herenton would not have prevailed in a two-person race.
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