Kunkle, Rawlings pledge to stay on message; advocates say LGBT vote could have significant impact
TAMMYE NASH | Senior Editor
nash@dallasvoice.com
Turnout. That’s the key for Dallas mayoral candidates who wrangled their way into runoffs after the May 14 general elections.
Mike Rawlings and David Kunkle are facing off in the June 18 runoff, and both said this week that turnout and support in the LGBT community will play key roles.
Gay former Dallas City Councilman Ed Oakley knows something about runoff strategies. Four years ago, he lost his bid for mayor in a runoff with Tom Leppert. Oakley said this week that Rawlings and Kunkle “have about five weeks now to get their voters re-energized to go back to the polls” on June 18. It won’t be an easy task.
“They have to raise about the same amount of money they raised for the general election [to pay for] advertising on TV, mailers — all the same things they paid for before,” Oakley said. “On top of that, the candidates will end up having to do all the debates all over again.
“It’s totally different in a runoff. Messages get refined,” he added. “In my race, we ran a great ground campaign and we raised the money, but we got off message. The media started targeting the gay issue” — Oakley was in a position to become the first openly gay mayor of a large U.S. city, which became a focus in the media — “and that became such a big issue that our message got lost.”
Oakley also predicted that Kunkle, who got 32 percent of the general election vote, faces an uphill battle against Rawlings, who ended the general election with 41 percent. Rawlings outspent all three of his general election opponents, while Kunkle relied on a strong grassroots effort.
“You have to hand it to [Kunkle] and his staff. They ran a great grassroots campaign to get into the runoff. But while the grassroots campaign is great, in a runoff he has to be able to spend the money to reach out to different voters, and I think he is going to be a little handicapped,” Oakley said.
Kunkle himself said this week that “in the most simple terms, I have to get my voters out a second time and try to get as many of [third-place finisher] Ron Natinsky’s supporters over to my side as possible.”
Kunkle said he will focus on his vision for the city, and will work to differentiate himself from Rawlings and his approach to governing Dallas.
“We are two different people with different backgrounds, different values and different decision-making processes,” Kunkle said. “I know this city, its neighborhoods and its people, and my priority is creating strong, livable neighborhoods, and building a good future for the city by driving sustainable economic development.”
Rawlings said his efforts leading up to the runoff will be to “do what I always do, which is look at what has worked and keep doing that.”
Rawlings said he will focus on “improving in areas where I did well [in getting votes], but also looking at those areas where I didn’t knock it over the fence and try to improve there, like in Angela Hunt’s district, District 14.”
Rawlings said he believes his message in the general election “resonated well with the voters,” considering that he garnered 41 percent of the vote, and he believes that those who supported Natinsky before will be drawn to his campaign now.
“I think my message as far as economic development and focusing on growth as a city matches up very nicely with what Natinsky’s supporters are looking for.”
Both Rawlings and Kunkle said they believe support in the LGBT community is essential for a runoff victory.
“I have always appreciated so much the friendships I have had for a long time in the LGBT community and the new friendships I have made during this campaign,” Rawlings said. “I think the LGBT community is a great example of what makes Dallas strong, and that is inclusion, rather than exclusion.
“More than that, I think it comes down to how we treat each other and the degree of civility involved. That should go beyond group to group; it’s about individual to individual. Government should do a better job in that area, and I have decided I will make a difference in that” if elected.
Kunkle pointed to his long-standing relationship with the LGBT community dating back to his days as Dallas police chief.
“I have the support of Stonewall Democrats, and I won all the precincts that are identified as strong GLBT precincts,” Kunkle said. “One of the things that makes Dallas successful as a city is that it is a cool place to live, and it has a growing economy, and I think people in the GLBT community can feel comfortable coming to Dallas, given the equal opportunity here in employment and the strong community that exists here.
“And the reason [LGBT people] come to Dallas is not because it has this giant downtown where you can go work in some corporate headquarters, but because it has strong neighborhoods and a strong community. That’s what I want to help to grow and improve.”
LGBT support
Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance President Patti Fink and DGLA PAC Chair Damien Duckett this week agreed that the LGBT community could have a significant impact on the outcome of the mayoral runoff.
DGLA endorsed Natinsky in the general election, and Duckett said the PAC is meeting Friday, May 20, to “determine whether we want to recommend a new slate of candidates for the runoff, and that include the mayor’s race, since our endorsed candidate didn’t make it through.”
But, Duckett said, DGLA isn’t considering new endorsements just because the organization’s original candidate didn’t make the runoff.
“It’s our responsibility to make a recommendation to our community, based on the candidates who are available,” he said. “We have a responsibility to make sure our community hears from us.”
In issuing endorsements for the general election DGLA not only backed Natinsky, the organization also issued a “warning” against Rawlings, saying his strong focus on business and economic development might override his commitment on civil rights issues.
Duckett said one issue that concerns him in the runoff is “whether the candidates are keeping honest. This is the runoff; this is sudden death. And this is where candidates can get desperate and start slinging mud, where they start making promises they don’t intend to keep and showing false sincerity in paying attention to issues presented to them.
“I hope our mayoral candidates are being honest instead of just saying something that is politically expedient,” he added. “I hope the voters and the media will really pay attention to what is said in the coming weeks and how that measures up to what was said in the general election.”
Fink pointed out that especially in elections where turnout is low — as was the case with the May 14 general election in Dallas and is likely to be the case in the June 18 runoff — the LGBT community, if it turns out in force, “has a real opportunity to have our votes become more inflated in terms of influence.”
She pointed to the District 6 council race where Monica Alonza, endorsed by Stonewall Democrats, defeated Luis Sepulveda, endorsed by DGLA. Only 1,035 people voted in that race, with Alonzo getting 634 votes to Sepulveda’s 401.
“If we [DGLA] had just mobilized 200 people in our community in District 6 to get out in vote on Election Day, that would have been huge in that race. That would have been one-fifth of the total electorate in that race,” Fink said.
“Turnout is, historically, much lower in runoffs, and the smaller the number of total votes in an election, the more impact each vote has,” she added.
“Our community, if we will turn out and vote, could have tremendous impact on who is the next mayor of Dallas.”
Watch the May 27 issue of Dallas Voice for coverage of the mayoral runoff in Fort Worth’ and in Chris Hightower’s runoff effort to become the first openly gay member of the Arlington City Council.
Kunkle’s got my vote!
“Skunkle” presided over the Dallas Police Department, arguably one of the most lawless, most corrupt and most ineffective law enforcement agencies on the planet. It’s time to clean up the City of Dallas, not further spread the corruption to the mayor’s office and to other city departments. That leaves Rawlings as the only qualified candidate.
Is this the same DPD that inserts itself, uninvited, into private clubs to pruriently pry into what all us lawscoffing gay men might be doing to our naughty bits? (Raids.) Mr. Kunkle has literally been the leader behind the literal goon squads that literally persecute your/my community. And, for this, we’re supposed to freely cast a vote for him? Okay. I can see that. GOPAC does it. Log Cabin Republicans do it. But, COUNT ME OUT. Kunkle is NOT okay for the reasons I just stated, and Mr. Rawlings seems to be more of a corporatist than anything else. Unfortunately, this isn’t one where I can “hold my nose and vote”. I will hold my nose, but cannot vote for either of these. It’s sad, too. Too bad we don’t have Laura Miller anymore!
Well, if you are a fan of Laura Miller and you trust her to make the right calls then you would actually be voting for Kunkle considering she supports him and her husband is his campaign manager (if I’m not mistaken). I would agree that DPD has a great deal of corruption that still remains but that doesn’t exist because of Kunkle. If you’ll recall, Terrell Bolton, Kunkle’s predecessor, was a ridiculously corrupt man and allowed officers to do whatever they wanted really. When Kunkle came in after Bolton was finally fired he said he wasn’t going to allow the department to continue acting the way it had been acting and he cut out a significant portion of that behavior. In fact, he went so far that he had the Fraternal Order of Police (basically the police union) all over him because they didn’t like how hard he was coming down on corrupt officers… But he didn’t care. Because it was the right thing to do. This is why that fraternal order didn’t endorse him in the general election. Because he wouldn’t bow down to there demands all the time. The level of corruption in DPD was GREATLY diminished under Kunkle.
Somehow the arguments commenter James Simmons and Justin N use lose all credibility when their comments resort to absurd, dramatic , biased false claims. There are readers of the Voice who do not buy into the National Enquirer, FOX, CNN and HLN method of persuasion.
I stand by my earlier comments:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A229-2002Jan18?language=printer
https://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/05/dallas-police-chief-apologizes-for-arrest-of-stroke-victim-diann/
https://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/12/01/838/84859
And I am also putting my real name right in the store window for everyone to see it. What’s your real name, “Voice”?
James: The Washington Post story was about something that happened under Chief Bolton and the AOL story under Chief Brown. The third story is about Chief Kunkle demoting two officers who were involved in the Bolton fake drug scandal. Kunkle also said on the record that he would never have approved the raid on Club Dallas. But I do understand someone not comfortable voting for someone from the Dallas Police Department.
For the record, I like both candidates and am looking forward to Tuesday’s mayoral forum at Cathedral of Hope at 6 p.m. I hope a large group of people from the LGBT community (and the community at large — everyone’s welcome) will join us. There will be time for questions from the audience.
My point exactly, David. The DPD is a corrupt organization at its roots, and I coincidentally happen to distrust anyone in the department, irregardless of when certain events might have occurred or who happened to be head of the department at the time.
You are a journalist, so clearly you are better at expressing various viewpoints, as well as opposing viewpoints. My point is, the department remains out of control, and its officers continue to run roughshod over an entire city. As for David Kunkle, “you are the company you keep” as the old saying goes.
Whoever the police union is against I am definitely for. We know one thing for sure, that the police are totally corrupt, so if they come out against a candidate then that candidate deserves our support.