Elliot Stonecipher Analyzes Shreveport Mayor's Race

How's the Shreveport mayor's race shaping up so far? Shreveport political analyst Elliot Stonecipher tells KEEL News he's spent some serious time on this since we talked to him last, and he gave us a run-down this week.

He said it looks like some of the folks supporting former Caddo Schools Superintendent Ollie Tyler were not in on the vetting of the candidate, but they'll wish they had been between now and November 4th.

"The real point is that we find that it was literally what you heard in the beginning -- the Cedric Glover forces wanted City Councilman Sam Jenkins to be their candidate, and their mayor," Stonecipher said. "He ran into those problems with tax liens. They went into a full court press to find someone else; they found Ollie Tyler."

Stonecipher said that's interesting because the group literally transferred Cedric Glover's campaign folks to Ollie Tyler, and a lot of his supporters are now behind her.

"At the end of this campaign, everybody can expect that what you'll be hearing is that a vote for Ollie Tyler is a vote for a third term for Cedric Glover," Stonecipher said.

What about State Representative Roy Burrell? What are his chances?

"I think when Roy ran last time, he got about 13% of the vote. That's a very, very solid candidacy, of course. It is difficult, however, to do that a second time unless you have a great deal more money to spend than you did then," Stonecipher said. "I don't think he will have that much more money. I'm not sure that he qualifies."

But that depends on a number of circumstances -- whether Patrick Williams is in to oppose the Cedric Glover side of the street, and whether former mayor Keith Hightower decides to enter the race.

Stonecipher said he's hearing two different things about who's backing Williams. "One answer is that he's really not that close any longer with State Senator Greg Tarver, because that is the other side of the street in the black community in Shreveport politics," he said. "Some still contend, mainly from the Glover side, that Patrick Williams is purely Greg Tarver's candidate."

He said the race is shaping up to be between Ollie Tyler and Patrick Williams, unless any surprises pop up. Hightower could be that wild card.

"Hightower leads the primary and has, by far I think, the strongest position for the run-off, which would be on December the 6th," he said. "Having said that, we all know that that race is either going to have Mary Landrieu on it, probably, in a run-off for the U.S. Senate or not."

Stonecipher said if the Senate is already in GOP control by the time Landrieu shows up on the December 6th ballot, that's one set of voters. If it's the other way around, it's a completely different turn-out profile.

Listen to the complete interview with Stonecipher:

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