by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Though the number of candidates running for the City Council Dist. 5 seat has dropped from seven to two, the remaining hopefuls — Republicans Jay Jabour and Art Shad — say it’s still anyone’s game and they don’t plan on changing the way they’ve been playing.
“I’ll use a football analogy,” said Shad, a financial planner. “If you execute a successful strategy in the preseason, why would you change it for the playoffs? There will be no change in strategy for us. We went from being the last candidate to publicly enter the race four months ago to coming to within one and a half percent of the top spot.”
Jabour agreed, saying his campaign strategy would remain unchanged and other factors would ultimately affect the outcome of the May 13 election.
“I don’t think much will change in the way that we’ve been campaigning,” said Jabour, a local businessman. “It will really depend on where the votes the other five candidates got [in the primary election] will go now.”
Jabour has already received the support of former candidates Jack Daniels and Dan Davis, while reportedly awaiting the backing of two others. Though it was not revealed which candidates were on the fence, Deno Hicks and Steve Bloomfield said they would not be backing anyone, while Jerry Cohn said he would “have to think about it for a little longer” and he “might endorse someone later on.”
Though no former candidate has publicly backed Shad, he has spoken to all of them and was “pleased with the possible, solid support” he may receive.
As for the general election, Shad said he didn’t expect to see two Republicans on the ballot.
“To be honest I thought it would come down to a Democrat and a Republican,” he said. “I was convinced that it would be Dr. Bloomfield and either Deno Hicks, Jay Jabour or myself. The Republican Party did a wonderful job in getting out the vote. The fact that we shut out the Democrats was very surprising.”
Jabour said from the beginning he thought it best not speculate which names would be on the May 13 ballot.
“I didn’t want to lose focus,” he said. “All along people were saying, ‘It will be you and so and so’ and things like that. I was just hoping they were half right. Now, we’re both going to have to work as hard as we can until election day.”