POLITICS RON KIRK’S KITCHEN CABINET

AROUND THE GREAT BIG TABLE THAT IS CITY politics, they are the ones seated closest to the mayor. A disparate group with little in common beyond their ties to Ron Kirk, they gathered together long before it was clear that Dallas was ready to elect a black mayor. They are his closest advisors, his inner circle, his kitchen cabinet: the political consultant (Carol Reed), the former city councilman (Craig Holcomb), the CPA/attorney (Del Williams), the litigator (DeMetris Sampson), the streetwise politico (Kathy Nealy) and the public relations executive (Lyria Howland).

“When you’re mayor, everybody’s your friend,” notes Mark McKinnon, the Austin-based media consultant who produced Kirk’s television commercials for the 1995 race. “It’s during the campaign that you realize who’s really loyal and who’s willing to throw themselves on the tracks for you. Each one of these people has laid down on the tracks for Ron Kirk.”

They meet about once a month-usually on a Friday, usually at Reed’s McKinney Avenue offices or Kirk’s Gardere & Wynne office, sometimes over barbecue at Sammy’s. Reed, who was retained after the election, sets the time and place, then notifies each by fax and, depending on the agenda, invites others with a particular expertise (the friends of the friends of Ron Kirk, but that’s another group, another story).

“Look at any administration and the people closest to the officeholder are those who fought the toughest battles during the election,” says McKinnon. “It’s a time when people make a commitment without the reward being obvious. It’s not just politics for them. It goes deeper than that. Every candidate and officeholder needs a reality base of people who can tell him the bad news.

“Everybody else kisses his ring,” he adds. “These people can kick his ass.” Ouch.

THE MAJOR-DOMO

Carol Reed



Half of what is arguably the city’s most unlikely political coupling, Carol Reed is the white. Republican political strategist hired to handle the mayoral campaign of the highly likable, but virtually unknown, black Democrat. Reed-who cut her political teeth as a volunteer in GOP women’s clubs before she became a paid campaign staffer for Senators John Tower and Phil Gramm-formed Carol Reed Associates, Inc. in 1978 to handle political consulting, corporate public relations and political and civic fundraising projects. She’s crossed party lines before, but Reed stunned longtime clients when she agreed to run Ron Kirk’s 1995 campaign for mayor. In a business where you are only as good as your last campaign, the move seemed highly risky, but as one observer notes, it was “a calculated risk.” From the beginning, he adds, Reed knew Kirk was “a political gold mine.”

“When you follow Ron around town now, it’s like going out with a rock star, he’s so popular,” says Reed. “But when we started, there were huge numbers who had not met him.” Kirk was known as a successful, sophisticated lobbyist and yet when he hired Reed, he had a 12 percent name identification with registered voters. Believing “to meet Ron was to change preconceived notions,” she focused her strategy on getting the candidate out through a series of events called Meet Ron Kirk. Polar extremes, they argue issues like an old married couple. But, together, they complete the circle of ideology, demographics and constituencies in Dallas.

THE CONSCIENCE

DeMetris Sampson

IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE CAMPAIGN, DeMetris Sampson, the fiery, in-your-face African-American attorney, and Carol Reed, the bawdy, white Republican strategist, were like two panthers circling one another in a cage barely big enough for two. With plenty of forces pulling Ron Kirk into the white Dallas establishment, Sampson was (and is) Kirk’s anchor within the black community. “Almost all of us thought for sure there would be nuclear war between Carol and DeMetris,” says one observer. Ultimately, “it was a lit fuse that never went off.”

Sampson and Kirk’s friendship dates back to the mid-’70s when they were among the first African-Americans at the University of Texas School of Law. Both went on to pursue careers marked by firsts: He, the first African-American mayor of a major metropolitan Texas city; she. the first African-American partner of a major law firm (the Dallas office of Blair, Goggan. Sampson & Meeks). “The very obvious thing about DeMetris is she never lets Ron forget where he came from,” says an observer. “She absolutely has the pulse of the black community and she isn’t afraid to say exactly what’s on her mind.”

THE WORRIER

Del Williams

CPA-SLASH-ATTORNEY DEL WILLIAMS WAS working as general counsel to the state agency for the Superconducting Super Collider and Kirk was chief lobbyist for the City of Dallas when their paths began to cross in the late ’80s. Williams later worked with Kirk’s wife, Matrice, during Ann Richards’ term as governor, and a friendship with the future First Couple ensued.

At the top of Williams’ worry list during the Kirk campaign: Would the money last? Was it possible for a coalition as inclusive and diverse as Kirk’s to come together or, for that matter, slay together? And how wise was it to talk openly about the candidate winning without a run-off?

Williams cut his political teeth as an intern for Congressman Jake Pickle, then went on to become Tom Luce’s No. 1 guy at Hughes & Luce and at First Southwest Co. Having worked on Luce’s 1990 bid for governor, he learned the key to being a good lieutenant. With Williams, “there’s no ego involved,” says an observer. “All he cares about is making sure whoever he’s an aide to is taken care of.”

Says Williams, now managing director and general counsel at First Southwest: “The first thing I bring is loyalty, The second thing is perspective on structures and operations. As Ron tackles some big public works projects, the experience I gained working in and around the Super Collider is helpful. Sometimes, painful experiences are more helpful than pleasant experiences.”

THE DEMOCRATIC PRO

Kathy Nealy

KATHY NEALY, WHO SPENDS UP TO HALF OF every month traveling across the country doing advance work for the Clintons, has a long political history, beginning with John Wiley Price’s race for constable in 1980. Known for her arsenal of political war stories, Nealy reportedly once maxed out her credit card on some ill-begotten presidential campaign (was it Mondale or Dukakis?) when she rented every available room in a hotel to create a makeshift phone bank, A first-rate political operative, Nealy has a particular knack for identifying the voters-and turning them out. When her old friend, Ron Kirk, asked her to draw up a plan to get out the vote in the city’s African-American community, he suggested Nealy cancel all travel plans until the election was over-including a trip to India with Hillary Rodham Clinton less than two months before the election. “The best thing you can do for the Clintons,” Kirk told her, “is stay here with me.”

Indeed, it was Nealy who coordinated the massive Kirk campaign effort in the city’s southern sector, a plan that included registering people to vote, getting voters to the polls early to cast absentee ballots, driving through neighborhoods on election day with bullhorns to remind people to vote and walking door-to-door with Kirk campaign literature. Nealy is Kirk’s voice on the streets. “It’s nothing for me to pick up the phone and talk to Kathlyn Gilliam. John Wiley Price, Royce West,” Nealy says. “I’m in the trenches every day.”

THE POLICY GUY

Craig Holcomb

WHEN RON KIRK ANNOUNCED THAT THE Trinity River Corridor Project would be the major initiative of his term as mayor, Craig Holcomb-the three-lime city councilman who now works as executive director of Friends of Fair Park-took it upon himself to be the mayor’s ear on the matter. Over the course of a month. Holcomb will attend two to three public meetings on the Trinity River Corridor Project, which would bring economic development to South Dallas. “All 1 do is listen,” says Holcomb. who was enlistTHE BUPPIE



Lyria Howland

Kirk’s mayoral campaign was several weeks old when Lyria Howland-a black urban professional-was hired to bring her considerable public relations and event-planning expertise to the cause. A friend of Kirk’s since 1985. the year they were both chosen for THE BUPPIE



Lyria Howland

Kirk’s mayoral campaign was several weeks old when Lyria Howland-a black urban professional-was hired to bring her considerable public relations and event-planning expertise to the cause. A friend of Kirk’s since 1985. the year they were both chosen for the leadership training program known as Leadership Dallas, Howland attended her first campaign meeting (“very loud, intense. rapid-fire’”) and, right away, was “appalled at the way people talked to each other-and to me!” At one point in the meeting, she was called upon to offer her opinion on a subject of some import. “Whatever I said, it was worthless,” recalls Howland, the moment long since blocked from her memory. “They ate my lunch.” Believing she had nothing to offer her friend the candidate, Howland faxed a letter of resignation to Carol Reed when she got back to her office. Reed promptly called Howland. “You can’t quit,” Reed insisted. “That was a mild meeting. They will get absolutely worse. But you’re absolutely not quitting.” A follow-up call from Kirk was necessary before Howland reconsidered.

Her campaign assignment: implement the program called Meet Ron Kirk, a series of neighborhood get-togethers hosted by couples and individuals in homes, church basements and recreation centers across the city. “To meet Ron is 10 like him,” says Howland. ’;If you like him, you can trust him. If you trust him. you can vote for him.” Although Howland remained quietly horrified by the inner workings of politics, she found herself swept up in the momentum. “That scared me,” says Howland, whose current client roster includes Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Paul Quinn College, Frito-Lay, Inc.-and Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk. “1 don’t want to be a political animal.”