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I read this analysis by UT reporter Matt Hall with great interest yesterday and it got me thinking about a conversation I’d had with many people around town in the last year or so. Up until now, everyone said that Mayor Jerry Sanders was invincible come the 2008 election. He still had his honeymoon popularity and hadn’t had a big scandal.
In 2003, just as he was popularly coasting along, Murphy was hit with a political avalanche. He surprised everybody by saying he wasn’t going to run again. Then he said he would run. Then the Cedar Fire hit. Then the Securities and Exchange Commission and FBI began investigating City Hall.
Now, all of that doesn’t quite compare with an oversized office building yet. But it is Sanders’ first scandal, though.
And, as Hall writes, there is some thought Sunroad has opened a door for Steve Francis, another Republican, and Democrat Donna Frye.
We’re still more than a year away from the November 2008 election.
But remember this: Even with the ongoing investigations and the political meltdown in 2004, Murphy still survived the challenge from a fellow Republican (Ron Roberts) and Frye (all bubble controversies notwithstanding).