While Greensboro Mayor Robbie Perkins fights for his political life —-last night I got a robo call with a California area code —–Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines is all set for an easy victory in today’s election. The Winston-Salem Journal’s Scott Sexton writes:
The most obvious reason this race is one to watch is simple: Joines is a good mayor, perhaps the best Camel City has ever seen. He works hard, showing up at ribbon cuttings, retirements and meetings — both public and private.
He understood early on that a thriving downtown is a key to a booming city both in symbol and substance, and helped create the conditions that blew the tumbleweeds of the early 2000s out of town. Cruise down Fourth or Trade streets on any given Friday or Saturday for the proof.
Joines also recognized the shifting sands of the economy away from our traditional base in tobacco and textiles, and directed city attention toward the mushrooming research park.
…Joines will win a fourth term easily today in a contest that’s as much validation as it is election. And that’s OK. By nearly any measure, Winston-Salem is on much firmer footing now than it was in 2001. For that, Joines deserves a mountain of credit, a landslide victory and perhaps a statue. Just be sure to depict the mayor in a BMW; he’d look silly on a horse.
As for Perkins, ‘fighting for his political life’ might be a bit melodramatic. Should he lose today, he’ll retreat into private life, get his personal life in order and be back again before we know it.
