Because he’s either a masochist or painfully committed to the idea of bipartisan overtures, Mayor Mike Rawlings appeared this morning on conservative commentator and occasional Dallas Morning News columnist Mark Davis’ radio program.
After some aggressively jocular talk about the recently rescued downtown Holiday Parade—or “Christmas parade,” as Davis is contractually obligated, as a conservative radio host, to call it—and the secret of its as-yet-unnamed new corporate sponsor, there are maybe 10 minutes of chatter about Dallas’ Confederate statues. Skip it. Davis thumps his chest and airs his grievances. Nothing you haven’t heard before. But for a shining 30 seconds, starting at 14:30 in the 8 a.m. hour, we get something interesting.
Davis: Your level of interest, 0-10, in running for Congress against Pete Sessions.
Rawlings: Oh, zero. I talk to Pete. I talked to Pete the other day. I think Pete’s doing a good job for the city of Dallas. I’m a Democrat. I think the Republicans are off-point in many, many areas, so I’m going to be a Democrat. But my first job is being mayor of the city of Dallas, and Pete’s really been a great partner in that.
It’s worth keeping in mind the audience Rawlings knows he’s speaking to here. It behooves him, as a Democrat serving in the essentially nonpartisan realm of municipal government, to try and appeal to conservative constituents seeing red over the removal of a statue and the naming of a parade. It’s why he’s talking to Mark Davis in the first place. But it doesn’t sound like he’s feeding anybody baloney. Rawlings, for now at least, doesn’t seem to have his eyes on the North Dallas County congressional seat. Probably a smart move. The Democratic field is already pretty crowded.
It does leave us with a few questions. Why is Rawlings, ostensibly still a Democrat, buddying up with a conservative radio host and not throwing his weight behind someone in that crowded Democratic field? And if Rawlings isn’t interested in Sessions’ seat, or in campaigning for his own party, what does the mayor have planned for his own future, in politics or otherwise? His term is up in 2019.
