Outspending his opponents on television by a 4-to-1 margin, Karl Dean is surging upward in the latest internal polls by the mayoral campaigns, and Bob Clement faces the unnerving prospect of fading into second in what looks like a wide-open contest.

A new poll by The City Paper shows Dean, Clement and Vice Mayor Howard Gentry in a statistical tie at the top. Gentry isn’t doing as well in any other poll, including one that Channel 4 released last week. But in a low-turnout election with a crowded ballot, just about anything can happen.

No one is expected to win more than 50 percent of the vote in next week’s election, meaning a runoff between the top two candidates will be held Sept. 11. Finishing second is a potentially disastrous letdown for Clement, who started the campaign as the heavy favorite and was once considered by the city’s big political donors as all but unbeatable. If he limps into second on Election Day, he will have the look of a loser to many.

Asked whether the former congress-man would win the most votes on Aug. 2, a source in the Clement camp concedes, “There is some doubt about that now. Dean’s spending is changing everything. When one guy outspends everyone else, a lot of shit happens you don’t plan on.”

In the campaigns’ polling, Dean has grabbed the momentum and is either slightly behind Clement or in a dead heat with him. Gentry and Metro Council member Buck Dozier are losing support in these polls, and council member David Briley remains last.

The Clement campaign has apparently decided to try to hang on through Aug. 2 and resist the temptation to increase its own spending before then. “We can’t match Dean’s spending,” says the Clement source. “It’s one thing to finish second. It’s another thing to finish second broke. We’ve got to have money for the runoff.”

Dean has always been Clement’s most-feared foe. Clement’s an old-style politician who has been running for one office or another for almost four decades. His biggest challenge is convincing voters that his sell-by tag hasn’t yet expired. In contrast, Dean is a fresh face, he’s telegenic and he probably better fits most voters’ idea of the kind of forward-looking leader Nashville needs to progress as a city. Even his faults seem to work to his advantage. Shy and almost boring, Dean often appears uncomfortable at public appearances. But that only seems to add to his appeal as the un-politician.

Perhaps most importantly, Dean’s also capable of financing his campaign by writing checks from the fortune inherited by his wife Anne Davis, the niece of Joe C. Davis, the coal-mining magnate and Nashville philanthropist. At last report, Dean had poured $375,000 of his family wealth into his campaign. He’ll spend roughly $1 million on television ads alone by Aug. 2, four times what Clement is spending.

The financial odds won’t improve for Clement. Contributions to Dean will roll in if he makes the runoff. Developers, construction contractors, lawyers and others who want to do business with the city gave to Clement early and will hurry to hedge their bets with Dean.

Dean’s campaign started slowly, mainly because he was virtually unknown to the public. But he didn’t help himself with his original TV ad campaign, a fuzzy series that took great pains to explain how education, crime and economic development are related. A month ago, he doubled his TV ad buy, dropped his “It’s All Connected” theme, and went with a straightforward commercial touting the simple fact that as law director he shut down dozens of cathouses and adult entertainment businesses. Next appeared an ad on The Tennessean’s endorsement of his candidacy. That endorsement may have been pivotal because it came when most voters were starting to pay attention.

Pulling a Fulton

The way the mayoral campaign is shaping up is reminiscent of the last competitive contest for the office. In 1999, the monied elite gave heavily to Dick Fulton, the elderly ex-mayor and congressman, and he was favored until the end, when it turned out that voters preferred a younger, more energetic candidate named Bill Purcell.

To stop Dean’s upsurge in popularity, the Clement campaign is preparing negative TV ads for the runoff that would flay Dean as a criminal coddler as Metro public defender during the 1990s. “We’ll see how he likes campaigning with Willie Horton as his running mate,” one Clement staffer snorts.

In 1999, Fulton needed to tarnish the public’s positive perception of Purcell, but Fulton chose not to follow his advisers’ recommendations to go on the attack—at least not in the runoff. Instead, seeing the writing on the wall, he withdrew altogether and didn’t contest the office. It’s not likely that Clement, a veteran of political mud baths, would do the same.

The retro candidate

The one caution flag for Dean on Aug. 2 is turnout. About 100,000 people are expected to cast ballots, a third of registered voters. With an even lower turnout, say 80,000 people, a combination of factors could knock Dean out of the race: (a) Briley might cut too deeply into Dean’s support by sapping away progressive voters or (b) that might allow Dozier or Gentry to eek into the runoff on the strength of their die-hard bases of support—senior citizens and Church of Christ members for Dozier, and blacks for Gentry.

If Clement had his choice, he’d pick Dozier as his runoff opponent. “Dozier’s our dream candidate,” a Clement campaign source says. “If it’s Clement vs. Dozier, the so-called liberal progressive group in all of their glory will reluctantly either coalesce behind Clement or not vote, because they’re terrified of Dozier” because of his church association.

Dozier has all but shunned television to run an old-school campaign. He’s sent 500,000 letters and postcards, phoned 60,000 households, knocked on the doors of 40,000 homes and plunked down 4,000 yard signs. More than 1,100 volunteers have signed up to work at polling places and do neighborhood canvassing before Election Day. “Don’t ever underestimate me,” Dozier says.

At a breakfast hosted by the Madison Chamber of Commerce, all the candidates were doing the shake ’n’ howdy, as they say, and Dozier strategist Mike Kopp was explaining his campaign’s retro strategy. “We can’t compete with Clement and Dean on TV, so we’re not trying,” Kopp says. “In a race like this, you gotta have a good ground game. We raised about $10,000 the other day at an event, which was pretty good for us, and we said, ‘Should we buy more TV?’ And then we said, ‘Nah, let’s put it all in the ground game.’ ”

Outspending his opponents on television by a 4-to-1 margin, Karl Dean is surging upward in the latest internal polls by the mayoral campaigns, and Bob Clement faces the unnerving prospect of fading into second in what looks like a wide-open contest.

A new poll by The City Paper shows Dean, Clement and Vice Mayor Howard Gentry in a statistical tie at the top. Gentry isn’t doing as well in any other poll, including one that Channel 4 released last week. But in a low-turnout election with a crowded ballot, just about anything can happen.

No one is expected to win more than 50 percent of the vote in next week’s election, meaning a runoff between the top two candidates will be held Sept. 11. Finishing second is a potentially disastrous letdown for Clement, who started the campaign as the heavy favorite and was once considered by the city’s big political donors as all but unbeatable. If he limps into second on Election Day, he will have the look of a loser to many.

Asked whether the former congress-man would win the most votes on Aug. 2, a source in the Clement camp concedes, “There is some doubt about that now. Dean’s spending is changing everything. When one guy outspends everyone else, a lot of shit happens you don’t plan on.”

In the campaigns’ polling, Dean has grabbed the momentum and is either slightly behind Clement or in a dead heat with him. Gentry and Metro Council member Buck Dozier are losing support in these polls, and council member David Briley remains last.

The Clement campaign has apparently decided to try to hang on through Aug. 2 and resist the temptation to increase its own spending before then. “We can’t match Dean’s spending,” says the Clement source. “It’s one thing to finish second. It’s another thing to finish second broke. We’ve got to have money for the runoff.”

Dean has always been Clement’s most-feared foe. Clement’s an old-style politician who has been running for one office or another for almost four decades. His biggest challenge is convincing voters that his sell-by tag hasn’t yet expired. In contrast, Dean is a fresh face, he’s telegenic and he probably better fits most voters’ idea of the kind of forward-looking leader Nashville needs to progress as a city. Even his faults seem to work to his advantage. Shy and almost boring, Dean often appears uncomfortable at public appearances. But that only seems to add to his appeal as the un-politician.

Perhaps most importantly, Dean’s also capable of financing his campaign by writing checks from the fortune inherited by his wife Anne Davis, the niece of Joe C. Davis, the coal-mining magnate and Nashville philanthropist. At last report, Dean had poured $375,000 of his family wealth into his campaign. He’ll spend roughly $1 million on television ads alone by Aug. 2, four times what Clement is spending.

The financial odds won’t improve for Clement. Contributions to Dean will roll in if he makes the runoff. Developers, construction contractors, lawyers and others who want to do business with the city gave to Clement early and will hurry to hedge their bets with Dean.

Dean’s campaign started slowly, mainly because he was virtually unknown to the public. But he didn’t help himself with his original TV ad campaign, a fuzzy series that took great pains to explain how education, crime and economic development are related. A month ago, he doubled his TV ad buy, dropped his “It’s All Connected” theme, and went with a straightforward commercial touting the simple fact that as law director he shut down dozens of cathouses and adult entertainment businesses. Next appeared an ad on The Tennessean’s endorsement of his candidacy. That endorsement may have been pivotal because it came when most voters were starting to pay attention.

Pulling a Fulton

The way the mayoral campaign is shaping up is reminiscent of the last competitive contest for the office. In 1999, the monied elite gave heavily to Dick Fulton, the elderly ex-mayor and congressman, and he was favored until the end, when it turned out that voters preferred a younger, more energetic candidate named Bill Purcell.

To stop Dean’s upsurge in popularity, the Clement campaign is preparing negative TV ads for the runoff that would flay Dean as a criminal coddler as Metro public defender during the 1990s. “We’ll see how he likes campaigning with Willie Horton as his running mate,” one Clement staffer snorts.

In 1999, Fulton needed to tarnish the public’s positive perception of Purcell, but Fulton chose not to follow his advisers’ recommendations to go on the attack—at least not in the runoff. Instead, seeing the writing on the wall, he withdrew altogether and didn’t contest the office. It’s not likely that Clement, a veteran of political mud baths, would do the same.

The retro candidate

The one caution flag for Dean on Aug. 2 is turnout. About 100,000 people are expected to cast ballots, a third of registered voters. With an even lower turnout, say 80,000 people, a combination of factors could knock Dean out of the race: (a) Briley might cut too deeply into Dean’s support by sapping away progressive voters and (b) that might allow Dozier or Gentry to eek into the runoff on the strength of their die-hard bases of support—senior citizens and Church of Christ members for Dozier, and blacks for Gentry.

If Clement had his choice, he’d pick Dozier as his runoff opponent. “Dozier’s our dream candidate,” a Clement campaign source says. “If it’s Clement vs. Dozier, the so-called liberal progressive group in all of their glory will reluctantly either coalesce behind Clement or not vote, because they’re terrified of Dozier” because of his church association.

Dozier has all but shunned television to run an old-school campaign. He’s sent 500,000 letters and postcards, phoned 60,000 households, knocked on the doors of 40,000 homes and plunked down 4,000 yard signs. More than 1,100 volunteers have signed up to work at polling places and do neighborhood canvassing before Election Day. “Don’t ever underestimate me,” Dozier says.

At a breakfast hosted by the Madison Chamber of Commerce, all the candidates were doing the shake ’n’ howdy, as they say, and Dozier strategist Mike Kopp was explaining his campaign’s retro strategy. “We can’t compete with Clement and Dean on TV, so we’re not trying,” Kopp says. “In a race like this, you gotta have a good ground game. We raised about $10,000 the other day at an event, which was pretty good for us, and we said, ‘Should we buy more TV?’ And then we said, ‘Nah, let’s put it all in the ground game.’ ”