From Howard Gentry’s campaign via email news release:

(Nashville, April 10) The Howard Gentry For Mayor Campaign raised $55,230 during the January 16, 2007-March 31, 2007 reporting period, according to the disclosure the campaign filed today with the Davidson County Election Commission.

That brings the total raised so far to $210,823. The campaign has $87,004 on-hand now. The vice mayor has made no loans or contributions to his own campaign.

“This is an exciting time for the campaign,” chairman Bo Roberts said. “Our ‘Believe!’ message is resonating with the public and our effort to elect Howard Gentry as mayor gains strength each day.”

This figure places Gentry fifth among the five major candidates. As I mentioned earlier, hopefully money is not the only significant factor in this race, but it does point toward Clement, Dean and Briley emerging as the leaders of the pack at this point. I’m curious to see when the ad blitz begins and how each candidate approaches it. In the case of Dean in particular, there is much name recognition to be developed.

Catherine McTamaney has the following quote in the header on her blog. These are great words that I think could sure use some widespread application:

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor, to answer your question, not yet, but maybe someday.

Buried in the Local News section of today’s Tennessean is a brief article by reporter Michael Cass disclosing that mayoral candidate Buck Dozier raised $70,000 during the most recent reporting period. It can’t all be about the money (can it?), but Dozier’s total significantly trails Bob Clement ($175,000), Karl Dean ($165,000) and David Briley ($131,000). As Cass observes, Dozier has raised more than $400,000 overall, but the bulk of those funds were raised over the course of last year, when Dozier was the sole candidate for the office for a significant portion of time. He now has roughly $210,000 in hand. Dozier was all positive in comments about his fundraising efforts in a related news release:

“We continue to demonstrate that our campaign is in for the long haul, and that we will have the resources we need to run a strong, competitive race for mayor.”

I’m wondering if he is demonstrating just the opposite. Despite assumptions across the city that the five candidates are headed toward a runoff, is it possible that the field might narrow in the weeks ahead?

Howard Gentry, the fifth “major” candidate, has yet to disclose his results for this latest reporting period but must do so today. This may be a mere formality for Gentry, but it may also signal an eleventh-hour scramble to assemble every last possible cent prior to the deadline. It is important to note that Gentry raised $101,000 in the last reporting period and waited until the deadline on January 31 to report then, too. I’m very curious to see where Gentry falls in comparison to Dozier and what both totals will mean for a race that is just beginning to heat up.

Karl Dean embraced the idea that Nashville should be a more environmentally responsible city while at last night’s Sylvan Park Neighborhood Association meeting. SPNA member and Richland Creek Watershed Alliance founder Monette Rebecca asked Dean what he planned to do to preserve the environment if elected as mayor.

Dean replied, “I’d like for the city to lead by example.” Echoing the green building emphasis that opponent David Briley has championed recently, Dean also said that he would like to make all of the city’s buildings more energy efficient. He specifically recommended conducting an audit of existing buildings to determine current energy efficiency and converting the city’s automobile fleet to biodiesel fuel.

Dean praised the development of the city’s network of greenways over the past several years and said that, as mayor, he would expand the system. He also said that he would like to expand recycling “to commercial areas and all over the county.” He said that Nashville is only capturing a “small amount of recyclable goods.” Dean also advocated for establishing an incentive program or a competition where schools would be encouraged to look for ways to conserve energy in exchange for keeping the money they save as part of their budgets.

Mayoral candidate Karl Dean spoke at last night’s Sylvan Park Neighborhood Association meeting for about 15 minutes and continued to draw parallels between himself and Nashville’s most recent two mayors, Phil Bredesen and Bill Purcell. He mentioned that Nashville has been blessed with 16 years of strong leadership from both men and said that he sees similarities between himself and each of them. Dean noted that although the two mayors had fundamentally different leadership styles and personalities, “both of them got the big things right.” Dean went on to say that “Bill doesn’t like for me to say this, but we met in jail,” referring to their initial meeting while both were serving the public years ago.

Dean has made this comparison previously, and it’s not a bad set of talking points, based on how popular Bredesen and Purcell have been. We’ll see whether the comparison sticks over the next few months.