12/15/8   He may not want the scrutiny on his local wheeling and dealing.

Does anyone remember the scandal when we learned that Mrs. Con Jerk had been serving on a Tom Hicks company board of directors -- at a substantial salary while her husband, the Mayor, campaigned to raise millions for Tom Hicks and Ross Perot, Jr.? You might want to refresh your memory with $275,998 Pieces of Silver, The Kirk's finally cash in their blood money.  Then read, Mrs. Kirk's board appointment, where Tom Hicks says "If she wasn't a female and she wasn't African-American, I would not have offered her the board seat."  He also said "To help out the mayor of the city and his wife who were having, you know, trouble adjusting without her income."  This was an issue in the 2002 Senate race where John Cornyn stopped Con Jerk's political rise.

How is that different from Illinois Gov. Blagojevich trying to get some income-generating board seats for his wife?  Is that a special bonus for elected Democrats?  If your executive salary is not adequate to maintain your lifestyle, the ODB (Our Downtown Betters) in any locale will step up to the plate to subsidize their pet politician.

A DallasArena.com reader, Charles Peters, directed me to Con Jerk's bio on Wikipedia.com.  It is amusing reading if you are into fictional biography.  My favorite line:

Were you living in Dallas when Con Jerk supposedly "earned the reputation of being a coalition-builder"?  If coalition-building is the same thing as bullying, I guess he was a coalition-builder.  Since we know Con Jerk ran the horse show like a tyrant (not a benevolent tyrant), coalition-builder just doesn't seem appropriate to describe him.  Remember how he would not allow Laura Miller any Chairmanships or even Vice-Chairmanships?  He was a complete jerk to both Miller and Donna Blumer, who both had won their council seats by large margins and much higher voter turnout than any of the council members Con Jerk named to chairs or vice chairs of the numerous council committees.

Con Jerk was a coalition-builder when it came to putting rich people together in projects paid for by Joe Taxpayer, but only benefited Kirk's ODB keepers. 

As for keeping the "Dallas School Board together", only a political ladder climber from Austin would not know the Mayor of Dallas has no power over the DISD -- no influence -- no leverage.  Several mayors have tried to encourage kids to read and stay in school, but the elected DISD board trustees do not take marching orders from any Dallas mayor.  Each Trustee is 1 of 9 votes.  The Mayor of Dallas has only 1 vote of 15, with only the power to appoint chairs and vice chairs of council committees and city boards and commissions.  What's more, the DISD superintendent makes more than the City Manager.  Nope, Ron Kirk had no power over the DISD as Mayor.

The Wikipedia psuedo-bio credits Con Jerk with the American Airlines Center, which was built  with the proceeds of two sales taxes on car rentals and hotel/motel rentals within Dallas city limits.  Those two sales taxes effectively killed our convention center business, as we in the opposition warned.  Now, our current Mayor is pushing to build a $500+ million dollar convention center hotel funded by Dallas taxpayers in an effort to revive the convention center business that Ron Kirk worked to destroy.  The current Mayor will face a referendum on the hotel in 2010.

Ron Kirk is a mean man.  At least, he's mean to anyone who can't help him climb his political ladder.  The Wikipedia psuedo-bio says: 

That is bogus!  Ron Kirk is a racist from his bald head to the tips of his toes.  The only White people he likes or even recognizes are rich or in a position to help him climb his political ladder.  He absolutely hated the idea of a nobody White woman like Sharon Boyd potentially derailing his sales tax for Ross Perot, Jr. and Tom Hicks.  Con Jerk spent $4 million of their money.  We spent just over $100K.  They had two of the biggest PR firms in town.  We were just a bunch of citizens (over 400 volunteers) on a mission.  Ron Kirk could not imagine why we were so committed to our cause when none of us were going to make money on the outcome if we prevailed.  If you aren't going to feather your personal nest, Con Jerk cannot imagine someone lifting a finger to do anything.  His side got 50.1% of the vote -- maybe.  Like every other time he has been in a political conflict, Ron Kirk played the race card.

See Kirk's Race Card for how his racism was exposed in the 2002 Senate campaign.

When then-Councilwoman (later Mayor) Laura Miller challenged him and exposed him as the woman-hating bully that he is, Con Jerk called up the services of Commissioner John Wiley Price and his thugs to picket her home.  Her sin?  Disrespecting a Black man in an elected position by disagreeing with his tactics.  Price and Kirk had thugs carrying signs with obscenity that were visible to Miller's children who were then pre-teens and younger.  Had to put that uppity White woman in her place.

Con Jerk wanted Chris Luna to be Deputy Mayor Pro-Tem, rather than the late African-American Charlotte Mayes.  Ms. Charlotte was not impressed with Con Jerk and was not willing to go away quietly from her executive office.  Donna Blumer, Paul Fielding, Al Lipscomb and Larry Duncan backed Ms. Charlotte in defiance of Mayor Con Jerk's desire for a tri-ethnic executive board of the council.  Blumer, Fielding and Duncan (White council members) were stripped of their chairmanships, but Ms. Charlotte and Old Al (Black council members) were allowed to apologize and get back in Con Jerk's good graces.  The dissenting White folk were permanently given the back of Con Jerk's hand to put them in their place and send a message to any other council members who might dare have an independent thought.

Con Jerk is a huckster, a carnival barker, who doesn't care about the little guy or Joe Taxpayer.

As Mayor, Con Jerk didn't care about the minutiae of city government, but he liked being a big shot Mayor.  He liked vacationing on the Riviera in the chateau of a Dallas billionaire.  He liked spending time on a yacht in the Mediterranean.  He did not like to deal with zoning and local issues.  Being Mayor of Dallas was just a slot on his political resum?  He's from Austin and only picked Dallas because we were so sensitive about race, and he saw opportunities here to play on that situation.  He played us like the carnival barker that he is.  Big show, big smiles (for the right White people), loud talk.

He didn't realize he was just a big fish in a little pond until he got snubbed by Nelson Mandella in South Africa.  Con Jerk hung around for several days trying to get some face time with Mr. Mandella, but the South African President was not impressed with a Black Mayor from Texas and made no time for Con Jerk.

Wickless A will applaud any position Con Jerk scores with the Messiah's team.  With the likes of Rahm Emanuel and Con Jerk in his cabinet, Mr. O has already indicated he enjoys the company of and prefers the advice he gets from bullies who are more interested in down and dirty politics than serving the taxpayers. 

Giving a lobbyist a national/international position of looking out for the country's good rather than his own interests is like giving the keys to the hen house to a mangy fox.

sb