Don't You Wish Your Mayor Was Hot Like Me

Of course, Leppert would be a little more convincing on this issue if his own children attended the Dallas Independent School District. Instead, he sends them to the Episcopal School of Dallas. Asked how he could persuade parents to keep their children in DISD when he and his wife choose not to, Leppert gives a pat answer about his commitment to education.

Leppert's rivals, particularly Jordan, have seized on his education platform as being unrealistic, if not irrelevant. Jordan says that the city has no specified role in DISD other than to make the neighborhoods surrounding local schools safe and clean. Besides, he says, the person in charge of education in Dallas is DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa. No one else has much of a say. "He doesn't need interference from another political body second-guessing the decisions he makes," Jordan remarked at a forum in East Dallas.

Jordan, arguably the most well-liked among his fellow candidates, is running a fairly standard campaign, at least for Dallas. His No. 1 issue is crime, and he argues in favor of hiring 200 to 300 additional officers over the next few years as well as buying new crime-fighting technology. But unlike Wells, who is arguing in favor of a sales tax increase to generate more money for the police department, Jordan doesn't have a plan to pay for his plan. He says it will pay for itself.

"They have statistics that show if you increase your police force by 25 percent you pay for that in decreased crime," he said in a recent interview. "[Former New York Mayor] Rudy Giuliani clearly demonstrated if you can reduce crime and foster a feeling of security among the citizens, you will more than offset the cost of hiring the police officers."

At some of the earlier forums, Jordan may have matched Hill as the most impressive candidate in the field. With a commanding courtroom voice, Jordan was well-versed and persuasive on a range of issues, from a 30-year-old lawsuit that hinders the city's ability to hire new officers to why the city should spend additional money to refurbish the Cotton Bowl. But in this crowded race, it's not clear how exactly Jordan stands out from the pack. He's not the City Hall insider, the maverick or the business candidate. So who is he?

"These are all capable, qualified men," he said at a recent forum. "So what distinguishes me?"

Jordan's answer seems to be that he's old. Here's how he explains, in part, why voters should choose him over Tom Leppert.

"I have been here during the good times and the bad times of this city. He wasn't here in 1963 when we felt the pain of the Kennedy assassination and we had to answer to the country and the world that we were not bad people," he explained in an interview at his campaign office. "He wasn't here when the Cowboys were winning and we felt good about things again, and he wasn't here during the boom of Reagan when we thought the cranes downtown were birds of Texas."

At various forums, Jordan has also cast himself as the only candidate who has law enforcement experience. Jordan served as a prosecutor under former District Attorney Henry Wade, but what he doesn't say is that was nearly 40 years ago—or right around the time Roger Herrera was born.

If anything, Jordan seems too much of a gentleman. That's helped him raise a lot of money and made him a formidable candidate, but it doesn't always come in handy on the campaign trail. After lightly criticizing Leppert's education platform, he's largely laid off him since. Like the other candidates, he hasn't brought up Hill's IRS or FBI problems. Jordan says it's because Hill is a "very likable guy." Other candidates may be laying off him for strategic reasons, he explains, but "I think in my case it has more to do with my personal feelings."

The one unabashedly critical statement Jordan delivered in the campaign came when he told The Dallas Morning News that, as mayor, Miller deserved a D-minus. It was a strong remark that succinctly hinted what kind of mayor he'd be. But after an interview with the Dallas Observer during which he praised much of what occurred during her tenure, Jordan revised his grade. "If I were being asked today to give my grade it wouldn't be a D-minus," he says. "She deserves a middle-of-the-pack grade. A C-plus."

As the campaign for Dallas mayor began in earnest last month, Wells seemed like a relic. Not looking a day over 85, he appeared tired, acted grumpy and struggled to stay on the same stage with more dynamic candidates such as Hill, Leppert and Jordan. Even worse, Wells often campaigned like an old-school pol, shamelessly pandering to whatever crowd he was addressing.