(C) Tennessee Lookout
This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
'Running on Vibes:' Inside Nashville vice mayor Angie Henderson’s historic upset – Tennessee Lookout [1]
['More From Author', 'October', 'Nicole Williams']
Date: 2023-10-03
Angie Henderson was prepared to lose.
The August 3 municipal election had her pitted against longtime council member and incumbent Vice Mayor Jim Shulman. The early returns were concerning: Shulman was up by roughly 1,500 votes. The only poll conducted had her down 20 points, and now she was trailing.
“I remained somewhat optimistic,” Henderson said, “but I had already told my children and my family that, you know, it was okay if we didn’t win.” By the end of the campaign, she added, the team was “running on vibes and anecdotes.”
As she sat at her dining room table-turned-campaign headquarters on August 3 – her daughter’s 22nd birthday – with a small group of campaign staff, close friends, and family, it looked like there might not be much reason to celebrate.
Her campaign director had gone outside, preparing to visit another candidate’s election night party, but he was keeping an eye on the returns. As the Election Day vote rolled in, momentum shifted in Henderson’s favor.
Almost as soon as her director left, he was back.
“I started to realize from looking at him that we might actually have this,” Henderson said. Within a few minutes, Shulman called to concede, and Henderson became the first candidate to ever unseat an incumbent vice mayor running for re-election in Metro’s 60-year history.
The Lookout contacted Shulman for this story, including by sending detailed questions via email and text. He did not respond.
An Unlikely Progressive Hero
For progressives, Henderson – a minivan-driving mom from a purple council district – was not the obvious choice. Shulman, a lifelong Democrat who cut his teeth in the state house working for longtime Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, had the backing of the Democratic establishment.
Henderson, meanwhile, confronted accusations throughout the campaign that she was a Republican in Democratic clothing. Henderson has voted in Republican primaries. She describes herself as “fiscally disciplined” and fiercely independent – descriptors some might see as veiled conservativism.
Even so, she benefited from the progressive wave that catapulted Freddie O’Connell to the top spot in the mayor’s race. In precincts where O’Connell performed particularly well, so did Henderson.
Neither candidate endorsed the other, but Henderson’s descriptions of her politics are reminiscent of O’Connell’s.
“I’ve built a very broad coalition by being genuinely me,” Henderson said, reflecting on the parallels between O’Connell’s campaign and hers, highlighting the “throughline of pragmatism and policy nerd” that aligns them.
These qualities – along with Henderson’s online engagement and policy positions – helped her capture the hearts of an engaged cohort of progressives, many of whom donated to her campaign.
Twitter may not be real life, but it can certainly help you fundraise.
A shared distaste for the Titans stadium deal also paired Henderson and O’Connell in voters’ minds. But former councilmember Jason Holleman dismissed the idea that the stadium made a difference in the vice mayor’s race.
“Jim Shulman didn’t get caught up in something that wasn’t about Jim Shulman,” said Holleman.
Dissension among the Ranks
It was an open secret that much of the Metro Council was displeased with Shulman. After a series of missteps and retaliatory moves, a sizable contingent of the 40-member body had grown dissatisfied with his leadership style.
Shulman’s downfall started with the public hearing on the budget in the summer of 2020. The city was still grappling with the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the council was conducting most business remotely, with public hearings held by phone.
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, calls for cutting police funding reached a fever pitch. Hundreds of residents attempted to call in to give comments on the mayor’s proposed budget, which contemplated a significant increase in money for the Metro Nashville Police Department. With phone lines jammed, some folks opted to go to the council chambers to comment in person.
Shulman and the staff had prepared for this; they had two rows of chairs in the mezzanine, spaced neatly six feet apart. Cordoned off by a makeshift stanchion made of traffic cones and braided rope, speakers were directed to sit and wait to be called into the chamber.
During a recess, Shulman left the chamber to scold the attendees – including one of Henderson’s own constituents – who had been waiting quietly for over an hour to speak. Shulman’s inflammatory speech was caught on tape and shared widely on social media.
Holleman called this incident a “man behind the curtain” moment that damaged Shulman’s bid for re-election.
“Jim Shulman has worked very hard to craft a kind-hearted, folksy persona,” Holleman reflected, “and I think that incident demonstrated a much more hard-edged politician, that I think is truer to who Jim Shulman really is.”
Votes Have Consequences
Shulman had a bad night, but one night wasn’t enough to inspire a mutiny.
About a year later, Shulman would make another critical mistake when he attempted to fill an empty seat on the Board of Fair Commissioners. Several councilmembers, including the body’s lone Hispanic representative Sandra Sepulveda, wanted to see a Hispanic appointee.
Despite attempts to increase diversity on Nashville’s boards and commission, Hispanic representation remained low.
Sepulveda and her colleagues in the minority caucus communicated their expectations to Shulman. Their calls for a Hispanic appointee went unanswered, as Shulman nominated a Black woman. The council voted Shulman’s nominee down, so he went back to the drawing board. Months later, he nominated another Black woman.
“We should not have to pick between a member of the Black community and the Hispanic community,” Sepulveda said from the council floor before the vote, “but systems of power know all too well that when you give scraps to minorities, they will undoubtedly fight over them.”
In attempting to split the baby, Shulman had created a mess.
A few months later, Shulman retaliated by removing several council members who voted against his Fair Board nominees from key committees. Among those were Councilmember Sepulveda – removed from the Rules, Confirmations, and Public Elections Committee, which considers and makes recommendations on appointments – and Councilmember Delishia Porterfield.
Porterfield was removed from the Budget and Finance Committee after serving as the vice chair of the committee for a year.
Shulman told councilmembers, in no uncertain terms, that their committee assignments should serve as a lesson: votes have consequences.
Following the retaliation, a group of council members gathered to field a challenger from among their ranks. Henderson agreed to step up. Even if she lost, she said, “It was worth having the conversation and trying to meet the challenge.”
By all accounts, she should have lost. The task she was taking on – unseating an incumbent vice mayor – had rarely been attempted and had never been accomplished. Henderson would have to run a near-flawless race with a little luck for good measure.
With a Little Help from My Friends
Henderson benefited from unprecedented support on the council. Ten sitting councilmembers publicly endorsed her, including six who were running for re-election. In private, 13 more expressed support.
More than half of the council had lined up behind someone who was, historically speaking, almost certain to lose. By contrast, three council members endorsed Shulman.
Holleman ranked this informal vote of “no confidence” among the most costly for Shulman.
“I think the number of returning councilmembers who were willing to speak out against a most likely returning vice mayor demonstrated to voters that there was cause for concern,” he said.
In districts where the councilmember endorsed Henderson, she beat Shulman by more than ten points.
As Luck Would Have It
Henderson ran an energetic race, attending neighborhood meetings and informal gatherings that Shulman opted out of, often staying late to have one-on-one conversations with voters.
“I said to my team very early on that I would rather go to an event and stay after than run off to the next thing,” Henderson said. “I think people remember that.”
“It wasn’t about quantity to me as much as it was quality. That said, we still did a whole heck of a lot of quantity.”
Henderson’s ground game wasn’t enough to sway the early vote in her favor, but a piece of perfectly timed mail allowed her to make a final appeal to voters just hours before the polls opened on Election Day.
“Jim Shulman didn’t get caught up in something that wasn’t about Jim Shulman. – Former Metro Council member Jason Holleman
Emblazoned with the words, “He’s Not Listening,” the mailer lifted headlines that reminded voters of Shulman’s outburst during the 2020 budget public hearing and concerns about his leadership of Safe Haven Family Shelter.
It’s a minor miracle the mailer made it to people’s mailboxes when it did. Henderson and her team spent the weekend before Election Day trying to scrape together enough last-minute donations to send it.
“We turned around that mailer on a dime,” Henderson proudly said, “from proofing it on Sunday to having it in everybody’s mailboxes on Wednesday. It was tight.”
Nashville politics podcaster Jamie Hollin agreed that the mailer played a key role in Henderson’s victory. “That was fantastic,” Hollin said. “It took guts to do that. Was it negative?”
“Well, if you’re spitting facts, is it negative? Facts are stubborn bitches sometimes.”
Righting Wrongs
Henderson has already begun to set the tone for a new era.
At Henderson’s selection, Councilmember Sheri Weiner, who endorsed Shulman, will chair a committee.
Meanwhile, Sepulveda and Porterfield will return to the committees Shulman removed them from, now as the chairs.
“It was important to return members to the committees from which they were unfairly, punitively removed,” said Henderson.
Shulman’s system of rewards and punishments is out.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/10/03/running-on-vibes-inside-nashville-vice-mayor-angie-hendersons-historic-upset/
Published and (C) by Tennessee Lookout
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-ND 4.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/tennesseelookout/
