Tag Archives: Debra McCartt

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Field of five emerges for Potter judge race

As is quite often the case, my attempt at political prognostication proved pointless.

I had posited a notion that two candidates for Potter County judge would vie against each other the seat being vacated by long-time incumbent Arthur Ware. Silly me. I didn’t anticipate a field of five Republicans running for the office next year.

I’ll stick with my view that two leading candidates will continue to be Nancy Tanner, Ware’s long-time administrative assistant, and former Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt. The rest of ’em?

I know two of the other guys: Jeff Poindexter and Bill Sumerford. Poindexter has run unsuccessfully several times for Amarillo City Commission posts. He’s an earnest and nice guy. Sumerford is the “gadfly” I mentioned in an earlier post. He’s a kind of tax-cutting tea party activist and has led petition drives to put measures on the ballot, believing that voters should have to decide everything.

Neither of these guys is a serious contender for the judge’s office.

I don’t know Bill Bandy, the fifth person in the race. He’s done a lot of things in his life, served on some boards and once worked as an “assistant” to former state Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas. I am intrigued by the “assistant” label attached to him in media coverage. I’d like to know to what level he assisted Swinford, whether it was on serious policy matters or whether he moved furniture around in Swinford’s office.

Well, all that said, the contest remains — in my view — a two-woman campaign between Tanner and McCartt, although the three other candidates could produce a runoff if the winner of the GOP primary doesn’t reach the 50-percent-plus-one-vote majority needed to be nominated outright.

I’m thinking now that Bill Bandy could be the darkhorse.

This could be fun.

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Clear the decks for this county judge race

If anyone out there is interested in joining the Republican Party primary field in the race to be the next Potter County judge, they ought to go find something else to do between now and next March.

The developing contest between Nancy Tanner and Debra McCartt is shaping up to be a barn-burner.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story.aspx?id=978847#.UqB8Hkrnat8

The two candidates appeared recently on a local TV news special and addressed specific concerns critics have leveled at both of them. They acquitted themselves well.

Tanner and McCartt bring specific and unique strengths to this campaign.

Tanner brings 20 years of experience as administrative assistant to County Judge Arthur Ware, who’s not running for re-election. She knows the county, its elected and appointed department heads, and how its government works. Ware fired her earlier this year for reasons he — nor Tanner — have yet explained publicly. My guess it had something to do with the fact she announced her intention to consider running for the office before Ware — who’s been recovering from a devastating stroke — declared his intention to step down.

McCartt lacks Tanner’s hands-on experience. She doesn’t lack, however, any public relations skills. McCartt had a successful run as Amarillo’s first female mayor, where she proved to be an effective spokeswoman and advocate for the city’s policies, strategies and goals. She showed significant courage in pushing the city forward in implementing its red-light camera program and has made no apologies for that decision. I applaud her for that. The major question facing McCartt, though, will be: Can her PR skills and political backbone transfer easily into the detailed work required of a county judge?

I heard a rumbling earlier this week about a possible third candidate stepping in the race. I won’t reveal the name I heard, other than to describe him as a longtime political gadfly. Other names have been bandied about the County Courthouse almost since Ware’s stroke in 2010.

My hunch also is that Democrats need not apply.

This campaign is going to boil down to which of these two well-known women will win the GOP primary next March.

If the early indicators play themselves out, we’d better strap ourselves in for a wild ride along the campaign trail.

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Tanner vs. McCartt for Potter County judge

I’m going to make some assumptions about the upcoming race for Potter County judge in 2014.

One is that the two most serious Republican candidates already have declared their intention to seek the seat now held by County Judge Arthur Ware. The other is that no serious contender is going to enter the contest. A third assumption is that there won’t be a serious Democrat running for the seat, given that the Potter County Democratic Party is virtually comatose.

So, we’re left with two women with vastly different capabilities: former county court administrator and Ware’s one-time right-hand woman, Nancy Tanner, and former Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt.

Ware, who’s not running for re-election, has endorsed McCartt — which shouldn’t be a surprise given that he fired Tanner from her county job earlier this summer for reasons he hasn’t yet explained.

So the question becomes: How will these women present their political credentials and what will they say is their strongest suit?

Tanner has a long list of actual accomplishment on her dossier. She’s run the court system; she has been at Ware’s side during the two decades Ware has been county judge; and she’s done much of Ware’s actual job since the judge suffered a devastating stroke in 2010. She knows the county well. She is well acquainted with county department heads and elected officials.

McCartt’s history is quite different. She served as mayor for three terms after serving a couple of terms on the Amarillo City Commission. McCartt is an immensely popular personality in Amarillo. She loves the city and served admirably as Amarillo’s chief spokeswoman during her mayoral tenure. However, the city’s political structure doesn’t give the mayor much actual power; the administrative duties are done by the city manager. Furthermore, the mayor and the four commissioners all represent the same constituency, since they all are elected at-large. But I’ll go back to my thought about McCartt’s personal popularity. It’s huge and I believe it will matter a great deal when the two candidates square off in public forums to debate the issues.

Potter County voters already have demonstrated a tendency to go with popularity over professionalism, as they did in 2000 when county Republicans nominated Mike Shumate to be sheriff over Art Tupin. Shumate had a checkered career with Amarillo Police Department, but developed a cult following when he ran the APD Crime Stoppers program; Tupin, meanwhile, served as chief Potter County deputy sheriff under Jimmy Don Boydston and was eminently more qualified for the job than Shumate. That didn’t matter to county Republicans. Shumate then breezed to victory in the general election that year over a Democratic candidate no one has seen or heard from since the votes were counted.

I am thinking the same dynamic may play out in the Tanner-McCartt race.

Tanner’s learning curve would be much less severe than McCartt’s, given that Tanner has done much of the job already and McCartt has little actual hands-on experience with managing the complexities of government.

Let’s all stay dialed in on this contest. It’s going to be a fascinating campaign that likely might reveal lots of things about Potter County’s voting public.

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Courthouse intrigue mounts

Potter County commissioners went into closed session this week to discuss a complaint about County Judge Arthur Ware. They came back out and said there would be no action taken.

End of story, yes? No.

http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2013-08-19/potter-commissioners-considering-complaint-against-judge-arthur-ware

Ware’s tale is getting very strange. He suffered a stroke in 2010 and has been unable to communicate verbally effectively ever since. He hasn’t handled mental health cases. The county has been paying for outside assistance to aid in the performance of the judge’s other duties, such as probate hearings.

The judge’s longtime administrative assistant, Nancy Tanner, announced her desire to run for county judge and then got fired summarily by Ware, who subsequently announced he wouldn’t seek re-election and endorsed former Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt, who plans to run for the office. Tanner will decide soon whether to run.

What’s missing here? By my lights, its any kind of explanation as to the complaint that was filed against Ware.

State law allows the commissioners to scurry behind closed doors to talk about matters such as these in private. However, it does not require them to do so. The open meetings exemption relating to personnel matters usually pertains to paid staff. If some non-elected individual on the payroll faces disciplinary action, commissioners certainly can claim the personnel exemption and meet in private.

An elected official is a different case. Arthur Ware is the county’s presiding elected official. He chairs the Commissioners Court. I’m not suggesting that his colleagues spill all the beans, but there needs to be some notion made public as to the nature of the complaint.

It likely won’t occur.

Meanwhile, the intrigue over what looks like a fascinating county election in 2014 keeps building.

This is going to be one wild ride.

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Potter County judge race could get testy

Potter County Judge Arthur Ware has announced — in a statement delivered by his wife — that he won’t run for re-election in 2014. He is to be commended for realizing the obvious, that his 2010 stroke has rendered him incapable of campaigning for his office, let alone performing the duties that go along with it.

Then came this thunderbolt: Ware has endorsed former Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt, who plans to announce soon her intention to run for the office. You want more theatrics? We have Nancy Tanner, Ware’s one-time right-hand woman, who worked as his administrative assistant for 20 years before being fired summarily for reasons that haven’t yet been disclosed publicly. Tanner also wants to be the judge, and she contends she has the chops to do the job, given her vast knowledge of court matters, probate and much of the detail that goes with it.

Let’s backtrack about 13 years to the 2000 Republican campaign for Potter County sheriff. Longtime Sheriff Jimmy Don Boydston stepped aside. Up stepped his chief deputy, Art Tupin, Boydston’s go-to guy at the sheriff’s office. Tupin was supremely qualified for the job. He didn’t win the GOP primary that year. The winner turned out to be Amarillo Police Officer Mike Shumate, the former head of the APD Crimestopper program, who went on to trounce an unknown Democratic opponent. How did Shumate win the primary? He had developed something of a cult following because of his rather, um, colorful way of portraying bad guys and the way he would seek to drum up tips from radio listeners that would help the police department solve crimes.

In a perfect world, Shumate wouldn’t have been elected. He wasn’t nearly as qualified as Tupin for the job. As it would turn out some years later, Shumate got himself into some serious trouble and was convicted of crimes relating to the sheriff’s department relationship with vendors supplying food and other materials to the jail. He was kicked out of office and sentenced to a jail term in Armstrong County.

Now we have another case of a popular public figure, McCartt, possibly running against someone, Tanner, who on paper is far more qualified for the job both of them likely want.

Please understand: I am not equating McCartt fully with Shumate. The comparison I want to make is as an overarching public personality. McCartt served three successful terms as mayor until 2011. But as the mayor in Amarillo’s system of government, she didn’t do any heavy lifting. Her job — which she did magnificently — was to be the city’s voice and face. She remains an ardent advocate for the city and she is to be saluted for the job she did in trumpeting the city’s many virtues.

All the nuts and bolts are handled by the city manager and his staff.

I have kidded McCartt many times over the years that I think she’s really a hologram, in that she was able to be at several places at the same time.

Nancy Tanner is another kind of public figure. She isn’t nearly as well known beyond the county courthouse. She was a workhorse for the county judge. By my reckoning, Tanner possesses a superb knowledge of county government. I believe that in all the factors that ought to matter, Tanner is more qualified for the job than McCartt — just as Art Tupin was more qualified to be sheriff than Mike Shumate.

I admire both Tanner and McCartt greatly, for reasons I think I’ve made clear in this blog post.

The question now becomes: If the campaign boils down to these two individuals, who will the voters select? If history is a guide, I’d have to say the stars are lining up in McCartt’s favor.

Then again … there might be someone else who can make the most compelling case of all for succeeding Arthur Ware.

I absolutely am going to watch this campaign with keen interest.