Fracture...

Peace, Kwame: Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

18 candidates. One defamed position.

Yesterday marked the deadline for throwing your hat into the political ring to claim the position of Mayor of Detroit. 18 competitors - some new, some old, some well-known, some obscure, some just because - filed their petitions with the City Clerk's office before the deadline yesterday afternoon. In a city that was on the rise, now devastated by scandal and bad horrendous national press, division has become the calling card of the day. February 24, 2009, Detroiters [those willing to show up to the polls] will be deciding which of these candidates should move forward into the general election to come.

18 men and women running on the 'ABK' (Anybody But Kwame) platform vying for the love of a city that is fed up with being lied to, pimped, set up, bitch-slapped, and trampled on. Some candidates will run on the theory that they should have been elected five years ago (Freeman Hendrix, Rev. Nick Hood III), some on significant change platforms (interim Mayor Ken Cockrell, Jr.), some on the belief that the ENTIRE last regime wasn't all that bad (former general counsel to Mayor Kilpatrick Sharon McPhail), some on name recongnition (former Detroit Piston Dave Bing, one-term state Rep. Coleman A. Young II), some who want to prove that they weren't just out to get Kwame.. but want his job instead (Angelo Brown, Duane Montgomery), and some just because (like Stanley Christmas, Brenda Sanders, Jerroll Sanders, and D. Etta Wilcoxon, among others).

Fracture.

My city is divided. Residents are tired. And now they're faced with 18 new and "new" faces to choose from, all of whom promise that their tenure will erase the terrible stain of the last twelve months. The question is who will actually have something to say, who will actually have a plan to DO something rather than just argue "I'm better than the last guy." Now a city that can barely rally behind its interim mayor or its disunified city council; a city that is sick and tired of its own government and is feeling the pain of decades of mismanagement; a city that was becoming proud but just had the air sucker-punched out of it must choose from a field of 18 'ABK' candidates who is best fit to run our city.

Who will come with the realness? Who will actually have a platform, actually have ideas, actually make decisions without the use of a political machine in the backgroun? Who knows the city, the issues? Who can actually BUILD upon the momentum of the Kilpatrick administration [pre-mess] and rebuild the city's image? What happens in year three, when Kwame is all but a distant nightmarish memory and the city is still "on the come up?"

The city needs coalition ... it needs cooperation. No more back-biting and deception. And the first step toward that is not having an 18-player primary. [My sincere hope is that some of these names drop out by the Friday deadline to do so. Giving people so many choices on the February ballot leads me to believe that there will be very few clear frontrunners ... at least given my sense of the city's political pulse and frustration.]

But politics are a funny game. And somehow, election season always works itself out. Though the field seems crowded, I'm not in the city right now to see how people are reacting; I'm just an interested observer from afar. I can only hope that my battered, beaten, bruised city can recover and pull itself from the toxic cloud it's been entrenched in since ... well ... for quite some time.

Eighteen? Show me the one.