Our interview with Joe Azar, veteran candidate
By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
APPARENTLY, it’s going to be my fault if Joe Azar loses — again — to Bob Coble in next month’s election for mayor of Columbia.
He didn’t tell me this himself. I learned that when I Googled him.
The first thing that came up for Joe Azar was a story posted by City Paper, a local publication I didn’t know existed until I read something in The State about its editor quitting. Long story.
Anyway, the piece was based on an interview with Mr. Azar in a local bar around midnight. (It said he doesn’t drink, but does shoot pool.) The story related Mr. Azar’s own “personal and strangely intriguing theory” as to why Kevin Fisher got into the race:
“Azar believes The State knew that if he ran against Bob Coble alone he would have a good chance of winning. For that reason, The State threw in Kevin Fisher as a spoiler, he says.”
I urged Mr. Fisher to run solely to stop the Azar juggernaut? Why would I do that? Mr. Azar explained: “There’s always been a cozy relationship between The State… especially the editorial… and city elected officials.”
So how — and I’m just asking — do you explain our having endorsed Tameika Isaac
and Daniel Rickenmann
over council fixtures Franny Heizer and Jim Papadea?
Oh, never mind. Apparently, his is a nice, neat explanation that helps Mr. Azar feel good about the fact that we never endorse him. I’m all for that.
Joe Azar is a genial guy. He goes around with a huge, passive-aggressive chip on his shoulder, but he’s genial. He always greets me with a big smile. When he met with Associate Editor Warren Bolton and me last week, he suggested having lunch after the election is over. Fine by me.
But I can’t imagine endorsing him. I think this mystifies him. I’m sorry about that; it’s unpleasant for me as well as for him. It makes our biennial or quadrennial formal meetings rather awkward.
And when I don’t write about him — something I prefer not to do, in keeping with the old saw, “If you don’t have anything good to say…” — it puzzles readers. One wrote on my blog Sunday, in response to my column contrasting Messrs. Coble and Fisher: “We have three candidates for mayor, not just two. Why was Mr. Azar only given one sentence?”
I’ll try to explain. Maybe I owe Mr. Azar that, seeing as how I’m spoiling his big shot. I’ll tell you what a meeting with him is like. That may help. He only came in to meet with us after complaining to Warren that he saw little point in it. Fine. Nothing special about that. Bob Coble had asked Warren if there was any point in his coming in, seeing as how I was backing Kevin Fisher. (Why am I always the last to know these things?)
But when Mayor Bob came in, he acted like a guy who was really serious about seeking office.
Joe Azar did not.
First, he spent a long time talking about how useless it was to come in, and how mean we always were, and how he knew the fix was in for Mayor Coble (which will shock my “main man” Kevin Fisher). “I wonder why you invite me; you can write the editorial without me,” etc.
But eventually, he talked about being mayor. He said he would do things that would set him apart. “I’d love to… live in a project for two weeks.” He said the other candidates would “never have stopped a young man who may be wearing gang colors, (and) engage them in dialogue. Before you can involve them, you’ve got to invite them. Say ‘I would like to involve you in a board or commission. But first you’ve got to clean yourself up, talk well…’”
He’s gregarious, and seems truly interested in helping people, on a retail level. He sees himself as a street-level guy. He holds out his hands and tells us how he gets calluses crawling under houses, showing “my guys” how to install the audio and video equipment he sells out of his Five Points store.
He says he would set up a “place for the homeless in the floodplain” where they could grow food to feed themselves and “have a little farmer’s market.” He would call for “a work-study program” for youth. A weightlifter, he would “emphasize more health and fitness.” He said he had had Marvin Chernoff’s idea for an arts festival “for years.” He would recycle computers. He would do a better job of hiring and retaining city employees. He would have a summer activities program, with a community band and amateur sports. “Gentrification is a serious problem,” he said. “And I wish I had time to talk about that.”
Sound breathless? He was. Late in the interview, I had noted the time and asked whether he had other points. He pulled out a document. Refusing to give me a copy, he read all of the above proposals aloud, at high speed, with an occasional gripe about being pressed for time. Our fault, you see.
I just took notes as fast as I could, and resolved to check his Web site later. (But there’s nothing like that list on the site.)
After an hour, he rose, and amid the smiles and handshakes, told us how upset he’d be when our endorsement came out. He said he would want to punch the walls, but instead, he would “put a picture of you and Warren at the bottom of the urinal.”
Or maybe he would put Warren in the urinal, and me in the toilet. Or maybe just put our faces on a dart board at a favorite bar.
“That would be classier,” I observed. Nah, he decided, he’d stick with the first idea: the urinal.
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Brad, Joe Azar and Mark should team up. A commune in the flood plain area, farm collective, gang members on city commissions, etc.. I bet midnight basketball would be high on the priority list. This guy wants a revolution, not a mayoral job. Paging nurse Ratchet, get the meds ready.