Over the past several months, we here at the Nashville Scene, your not-so-humble weekly newspaper, have been proposing our own wish list of possible candidates for mayor. We felt it was our duty.

Phil Bredesen, the incumbent, has already stated that he does not intend to seek a third term. Meanwhile, five or six likely suspects have expressed an interest in the job, but nobody in Nashville has been doing back flips over any one of them. Somebody had to do something. Somebody had to spark some debate. Somebody had to force the worthwhile candidates out of the woodshed.

Thus, in each issue from mid-November through the end of January, we nominated an entirely legitimate candidate to succeed Bredesen. We stirred up more talk than we could ever have imagined. We got a lot of thank-yous from our proposed candidates. At the very least, many of them said we’d enlivened their conversations at the dinner table and the cocktail buffet.

This week, to settle the speculation, we contacted each of our prospective candidates to see if any of them had any real interest in the job. We asked each of them to give us a “yes,” a “no,” or a “maybe.” We only got one “maybe,” and it made us more curious than ever. Only one of our candidates declined to give a response. But, even while he was explaining why he wasn’t talking, he provided some insight into his own political ambitions.

The mayoral election is still two-and-a-half years away. It’s scheduled for August, 1999. But politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Already, on any given day, former Mayor Richard Fulton is attending more public events than Bredesen attends in an average week. A snapshot analysis of the race today would indicate that the field consists of Fulton vs. Any Other Candidate. For the moment, the list of Other Candidates is said to include the likes of Circuit Court Judge Barbara Haynes, state Sen. Joe Haynes, Metro Council members Gary Odom and Ronnie Steine, and County Clerk Bill Covington.

Then there’s the Scene’s wish list.

The contenders

Here are the Scene’s nominees and their responses:

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Aleta Trauger: Trauger, who formerly served as Bredesen’s chief of staff—and whose husband, Byron, is one of the mayor’s closest political allies—responded with a stone-cold “No.” She said, “I have several candidates in mind, but [as a judge] I am totally foreclosed from political activity, and it would be inappropriate to talk about them.”

Dick Lodge: Lodge, an attorney who briefly ran for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1994, said, “Not at this time.” However, he added that his refusal was “not because of lack of interest or lack of commitment to the city, but because of commitments otherwise, particularly to my family.”

Kevin Lavender: Lavender, chief financial officer for MediSphere Health Care Partners, said, “not at this time.” Others say, privately, that he may be interested—years down the road—in running for office statewide.

Davidson County Sheriff Gayle Ray: “I am definitely a ‘no’ for now,” said Ray, who is in charge of the rapidly expanding population at the Metro Jail. Although she said she could “imagine” circumstances that might change her mind, Ray said she is currently preoccupied with running for reelection to the sheriff’s job. That primary is set for May, 1998. “I just don’t think this is really the time for me,” Ray said. “The timing is poor. I made a lot of changes in the sheriff’s office, and there’s still a lot of work to be done there.” Asked to assess the current field, Ray didn’t sound optimistic. “No one just leaps out there as the ideal person,” she said.

Bob Corker: Best we can tell, Corker, the former state finance commissioner who’s now doing business in Nashville, is a “maybe.” He may be a slight maybe. But we’re calling him a maybe nonetheless.

This is what Corker said: “I haven’t given [the mayoral race] a great deal of thought. At the same time, I would not want to rule anything out about the future. I want to be a productive citizen—whether it’s in business, in the nonprofit arena, or in public life. That’s what I plan to do. At the same time, I want to be a family guy. If an opportunity arises in the public arena that wouldn’t interfere with my family I would consider it. At the present time, though, the greatest contributions I can make are in the business arena.”

Before he came to Nashville, Corker ran a Chattanooga development company. In Chattanooga, he immersed himself in not-for-profit enterprises. Among them was a low-income housing program that has since achieved national acclaim.

In 1994 Corker ran in the Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate, but only after he’d spent a lot of time deliberating about whether to run against Don Sundquist in the Republican gubernatorial primary. He lost the senatorial primary to Frist.

Corker didn’t win the election, but he earned high marks for his smarts, his amiability, and his high energy level. When Sundquist became governor, Corker was tapped as his finance commissioner, the second most powerful job in state government. Corker drew raves from just about everyone who met him.

Corker stepped down from state government last year. But he settled here, bought a house, and began looking at business opportunities, many of them in health care. That doesn’t mean, however, that he’s lost his interest in public office.

Many think Corker is still interested in being governor. His next shot at the job would probably come in 2002—the year Sundquist will leave office, if he is elected to a second term. If Corker were to run successfully for mayor, however, he would probably be killing his hopes of a gubernatorial bid in 2002. He’d be running for the governorship after only three years at Metro’s helm.

Meharry Medical College president John Maupin: Maupin said he was “very honored that people think I have that type of leadership ability.” But he insisted, “I have a job to do here at Meharry.... My focus is here, and trying to think about a mayorship is something that would get in the way.”

Former state House Majority Leader Bill Purcell: Purcell is currently the director of the Child and Family Policy Center at the Vanderbilt Institute of Public Policy Studies. Purcell was the candidate who wouldn’t say, “yes,” “no,” or “maybe.” He declined to answer the question for reasons that may, or may not be, open to interpretation.

“I think it’s too early for anyone to answer that question,” Purcell said. “And I mean that.

“There’s nothing wrong with you asking that question. The fact is, people ought to be asking about the leadership of the city. But frankly, I think we ought to focus more on governing than electing. In this country, we have a tendency to think too much about the electoral process and the election itself, when the real focus ought to be on how we are being governed in our communities.”

Still, Purcell didn’t sound like a man with absolutely no interest in the job. For instance, he suggested that “many more things, if not most things, need to occur at the state and local level.” He also seized the opportunity to clear up a lingering rumor: Contrary to previously published reports that he wants a job with the Clinton administration in Washington, D.C., Purcell said, “I clearly see my future here in Nashville and here in Tennessee.”

Rich Riebeling, first vice-president, Morgan Keegan & Co.: Riebeling, who has been involved in local politics and in the local media for several decades now, can probably be counted on to jump on the Fulton bandwagon—if Fulton does indeed decide to run. After all, Riebeling was once Fulton’s chief of staff. “I don’t intend to be a candidate for any office at this point in my life,” Riebeling told the Scene. “I thought Fulton did a good job before, and he knows how to do the job.”

Nelson Andrews, Brookside Properties: Of all the Scene’s candidates, Andrews is the one most closely identified with the city’s business class of wealthy Republicans. Even when we first nominated him, Andrews said he was horrified by the thought of the job. This week he was out of town on business, but one of his sons echoed Andrews’ original statements: “There’s no way he would run,” Carter Andrews said.

Vince Gill, entertainer: Gill was the last name on the Scene’s list of proposed candidates. This week, we called his management company, who said Gill was unavailable to talk about his political future. “He won’t be back in the city until Thursday,” a spokesman said. “He’s playing in a golf tournament in Tuscon.”

Some of us may remember the last time we had a mayor who played as much golf as Gill does. He only lasted one term.

Pressed into service

Given the results of this week’s follow-up phone survey, Corker seems like the only one of our candidates who invites much further speculation.

His reputation, for the moment, is sterling. When Corker’s name is mentioned in Nashville these days, he summons up comments like those those normally reserved for royalty, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, and senior members of the Kennedy family.

Some of our own nominees, for instance, pushed Corker’s name without even being told that he might be interested. “I was impressed by what he did at the state level,” said Meharry’s Maupin. Even Purcell, who had some public disagreements with the guy while they were both on Capitol Hill, said, “I like Bob Corker, and I think most people do.” Riebeling, even though he is likely to back Fulton, went so far as to say, “People universally give [Corker] a lot of praise and say he’s a quality guy. He was the star of the Sundquist administration. Everybody I talk to is real high on the guy.”

Among the city’s political set, reaction to Corker is also very favorable.

Byron Trauger, Bredesen’s closest advisor, said he and Corker had their most intensive involvement while the city was trying to lure the Oilers to town. Corker provided assistance from the state level. “His involvement was very impressive,” Trauger said.

Mike Pigott, the spin doctor who has been involved in a number of Metro and state political campaigns, said Corker “has an advantage in coming from a strong business background at a time when people are pleased with Phil Bredesen’s performance, since Bredesen came from a business background. Corker’s a likable guy and has had some experience in government, and yet he’s not thought of as just another politico.”

When Harlan Dodson, another longtime political observer here, was asked about Corker’s chances, he recalled one of his favorite Bredesen quips—and there aren’t a lot of Bredesen witticisms floating around out there. “Bredesen’s line was that a Bostonian will be mayor of Nashville sooner than a Nashvillian will be mayor of Boston,” Dodson said. “That was a very clever line, and it is true that Nashville has clearly shown it is willing to consider someone from outside as a potential mayor.” In other words, it’s not going to hurt Corker that he’s from Chattanooga.

Dodson added that “anybody looking at [the race] would notice how many people in Davidson County are new voters. It doesn’t really bother you to vote for somebody from out of town when you’re from out-of-town too.”

On the downside, he noted that “It is hard to run a mayoral campaign in Davidson County with no real county-wide base.”

Meanwhile, since it was the Scene that started this little exercise, we feel justified in offering our own commentary:

Would Corker be a good mayor? Yes. He would be better than anybody else who has thus far expressed an interest in running for the job.

Could he win? Yes, but he wouldn’t have an easy time of it. He would have enough money—his own and the money he could raise from the folks out on the west side of town—but he lacks political organization in North and East Nashville.

Corker has one big plus: The Bredesen organization would probably assist him.

But he also has a big minus: He hasn’t lived here long; he still needs to meet a lot of people.

Will Corker try for the mayor’s job? Who knows? He would have to be talked into it. Call him.