Leppert's campaign barely struck back. They decried Oakley's tactics and highlighted the council member's recent lack of professionalism on the council, but they never took any personal or ugly shots. That's why after Leppert went on to crush Oakley, the vanquished candidate had no qualms about working with Reed on the Trinity fight.
"I don't think I run the kind of campaign that causes people to dislike me afterward," she says. "I viewed the business like I do as a chess game. You want to outsmart them; it doesn't meanyou want to destroy them."
Morrey Taylor
Brandon Thibodeaux
Carol Reed
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Having nearly upended the mighty Reed machine, Angela Hunt is not particularly impressed. The Vote No! campaign told blatantlies, she says matter-of-factly, and she's right about that. There was the tall tale Leppert told about how the Army Corps of Engineers gave its approval to the planned toll road, which would be the first of its kind built in a flood plain. Turns out, the Corps is still evaluating the city's proposals. Then there was the campaign's entire premise that Hunt's plan to kill the highway would raise taxes, while their plan, they promised, certainly would not. As the Morning News reported, conveniently a day after the election, that wasn't true either.
Hunt doesn't know how much of that falls on Reed or the toll road campaign's chief emissary, Leppert. Most people pin it on him. The mayor was the one who first peddled his side's falsehoods at public events and interviews. But Hunt doesn't care as much about how her opponent fought. What she keeps on thinking about is how, even with the mighty Reed manning the controls, the political and business establishment eked out a six-point victory against a ragtag coalition of ordinary residents, with nary a council member or big-time developer in the mix.
"I just go back to all the toys they had at their disposal; it should have been a blowout," Hunt says. "I think it's a clear indication that the cabal that has ruled this city without input from residents is on the way out."
At a lunch at a restaurant in the West Village, Reed is happily recounting a recent trip she took to oilman Boone Pickens' ranch. Pickens, a Giuliani supporter, decided to treat the candidate's top fund-raisers to a day of quail hunting. For New Year's Reed will be attending Renaissance Weekend, an exclusive retreat for a select group of heavyweights in the arenas of science, the arts, religion, business, politics and media. This year the invitation-only event will be held in Charleston.
"I can't think of a better way to spend New Year's Eve than watching Ted Turner and Dr. Ruth singing 'Auld Lang Syne,'" she says. "That's great fun."
When told that Hunt was unimpressed with her margin of victory in the recent Trinity campaign, Reed was barely irritated. She just pointed out that her side, while perceived as the heavy favorite, was behind in her polling when the campaign began in earnest. "Coming from where we came from, I'm pleased," Reed says before moving to another subject. Now just about any other fixture in this petty little world would become defensive here and take a shot or two at Hunt. Reed, though, could not care less. You can call her good; you can call her lucky. She probably doesn't care what you think.
"Everybody has a Carol Reed in their high school," says Boyd, the activist who battled furiously against her in the Trinity election. "You don't know what they got, but they got it."
