In his statement, Mauberret cited a desire to avoid an expensive campaign that he felt would likely turn ugly and racially divisive. Williams is black and Mauberret is white.
"I did not look forward to a bruising campaign against someone for whom I have a great deal of personal and professional regard," he said. "... Despite the friendship that Erroll and I share, I fear that others would cast this election in racial terms and try to divide our citizens, who came together in unprecedented fashion on Feb. 6 across racial, geographic, party and socioeconomic lines. I love my city too much to let anything threaten this historic time of unity."
Listening to people talk about this today I've heard these possibilities suggested: 1) Mauberret simply had no chance at winning a runoff and just waited until after the ballots were certified before withdrawing so as to keep the "refrom" candidate Janis Lemle out of the runoff. 2) Mauberret may have struck a deal with Williams in exchange for doing that. 3) Williams already had reached an understanding with all of the former seven assessors that he would be the unified assessor when the change took place. 4) This is somehow all Clancy Dubos' fault.
I'm willing to entertain any or all of these possibilities. But what I'm not going to buy is this lame line that Ed Murray and now Claude Mauberret is feeding us about not wanting to threaten the Great Post Lombardi Gras Golden Age Era of Good Feelings with a "divisive" political campaign. I'll believe a lot of stuff but that is horseshit.
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