Mike Dow - The Election of 1989

The Election of 1989

Arthur R. Outlaw, a Catholic, had been the first directly elected Mayor of Mobile since 1911, when the city switched from a mayor-council government to a city commission government. (The last directly elected mayor before him, Patrick J. Lyons, was also a Catholic). As a Catholic, Outlaw had a natural base in what had been historically a Catholic city, and had been elected in 1985 by a comfortable margin running as a sort of an old statesman candidate, having served terms on the city commission in the 1960s, 70's and 80's. During his term he had pushed with the city's first directly elected council (containing fellow Catholics Reggie Copeland and John Peavy) to pass an historic 15 year plan in 1987, part of which included the construction of a convention center on the Mobile River. During the course of time, opposition to the convention center had mounted and was leading to surface discontent with the Outlaw administration. Outlaw, being Catholic, affiliated with Spring Hill College and active in the Mobile Carnival Association (he was a member of the 1948 MCA court), was seen as being part of the traditional Mobile establishment. During this time, he was also Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party (municipal elections in Alabama are non-partisan, however, and so this never hurt him in what was at the time, still firmly Democratic territory).

During this time, Dow was running for City Council for District 6 in the southwestern portion of the city. During this same time, automotive dealership owner Joe Bullard was pondering his own run for the mayoralty. It was during this time that Lambert Mims was indicted for ethics violations for his actions in a previous term as mayor. Mims was seen as the primary competitor for Arthur Outlaw. Mims discussed running for Mayor with Dow and suggested he would throw his entire weight behind a Dow candidacy because of his desire to see someone defeat Outlaw. It was also rumored by Dow's competitor for District 6 that he left the city council election because polls were not in his favor. All public polls showed the contrary though. At the urging of Bullard and Mims, Dow decided to run for Mayor. His main point of attack against Mayor Outlaw was embracing the concept of old versus new. Dow made this the centerpiece of his campaign, and reached out to white and black voters. Dow was one of the first white politicians in the city to approach black leaders as equals. Dow's campaign included a coalition of African American ministers within Mobile's African American community and he frequently attended mass at various African American churches throughout the city. It is for this reason that Dow enjoyed very strong African American support. He did campaign on the need not to build a convention center. He won the election by a very convincing margin and his election suggested a shift in leadership in Mobile. Dow's victory came on the strength of his support among middle class white voters and African Americans, while Outlaw, who was chair of the state GOP at the time, carried the upper class white vote. It was Outlaw's affiliation with the GOP that forced Dow to choose to be an independent.