Rochester's Mayoral Primary Election 2021 and the Noble, Famous Queen

Flashback to the late 16th century.

Mary, Queen of Scots, is beheaded on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England.

A quatrain by an anonymous author, describing the event, was circulated throughout England, frightening the Virgin Queen.

It served as an explicit example of the dangers facing political leaders everywhere.

"The noble, famous queen, who lost her head of late

Is proof that kings as well as clowns are bound to Fortune's fate.

And that no earthly prince may so secure his crown

That Fortune, with her spinning wheel, hath power to pull him down."

Fast forward to 2021: Rochester's Democratic Mayoral Primary.

Mayor Lovely Warren was defeated in her bid for a third term in office by a "landslide," although barely 25% of Rochester's registered Democrats bothered to vote at all.

It was the worst defeat an incumbent mayor ever suffered since Rochester began to elect its mayors by popular vote forty years ago.

Her opponent, Malik Evans, won solely for the reason that he was NOT Lovely Warren.

How could this happen when Mayor Warren's regime began with such hope?

One word comes to mind: Hubris.

It began as soon as she was elected Rochester's first Black female mayor and continued through her concession speech tonight.

Her election in 2013 made her an example to women everywhere, especially to Black women, what could be done if you worked hard enough for it.

Attractive and well-educated herself and possessed of the necessary accoutrements for political campaigning (a handsome husband, a daughter, a dog and a nice home), her team turned her into a local idol and a national celebrity.

She appeared in Black fashion magazines, was in regular communication with important national political figures, was invited to appear at national political conferences and discussions and came to believe in the myth her team invented about her.

That was dangerous, especially for someone who already thought a great deal about herself.

Even more dangerous was the way her team, especially her personal assistant, kept the world from barging in on her. They shielded her from hearing what they did not want her to hear.

But it was exactly what she needed to hear. Because she didn't, it gave them all a false sense of security.

Henry Kissinger once said that elected officials begin by not knowing the truth and end by not wanting to know it.

That is what happened here. And she could not bear NOT to be an idol. Not any more. Her team realized this and traded on it with gangster-like audacity.

Encouraged by her senior management team and a rag-tag collection of ministers that buzzed around City Hall like flies (though she didn't require all that much encouragement), she was convinced that God smiled on her and spoke to her, and her alone, and that she was doing His work on this Earth. How dare anyone contradict her or challenge her, God's appointed?

But the worst was her complete and total disregard for the truth, beginning with Uncle Reggie's speeding incident within days of her first inauguration and ending with her own husband and cousins being arrested for drug trafficking and illegal weapons charges just a few weeks ago.

Her repeated excuses were that she didn't see anything, didn't know anything, that people were out to get her because she was Black, because she was a woman.

Criminality surrounded her from Day One and she waved off the grumbles with tant pis.

True, for six years she was able to shrug off minor scandals of her own and her closest associates' making, but the pandemic, the riots in Rochester after George Floyd's death and finally a conspiracy of silence about Daniel Prude's death revealed that her leadership skills had waned considerably.

If they ever existed.

Even her indictment and arraignment for campaign fund fraud was almost anti-climax and seemed rather silly since the accusations for those misdeeds occurred four years earlier, during her 2017 re-election campaign.

Her nadir came when her image as the perfect wife and mother was publicly destroyed by her husband's arrest and her revelations about the state of their marriage, concluded with her statements that she didn't know anything and was innocent.

She had worn out those excuses and could not recover from them. They did not illuminate her claim to being a strong, Black woman.

Yet, during her concession speech tonight, if it could be called that, it was mostly about how much she had suffered in the last year and how she had risen from the depths of despair, taking pride in her accomplishments (mostly fictional) and neglecting to mention her anti-cop attitude and the horrible amounts of  deadly violence that occurs daily in a Rochester under her stewardship.

She left the podium with her reputation tarnished and in tatters, but her ego as evident as ever.

Despite her tortured attempts this year to keep her crown, it tumbled from her head tonight.

Fortune's spinning wheel had come to pass and the bull had thrown the politician.