During Detroit mayoral debate, Cockrel tears into Bing’s credibility

Kenneth Cockrel Jr. is Detroit’s mayor and he wants to keep it that way.

That was the takeaway from Wednesday’s debate between the interim mayor and businessman Dave Bing. Both men are running to finish ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s term during a May 5 special election.

Cockrel tried to land two knockout blows in the debate, which showed he knew his way around rough-and-tumble city politics. Cockrel has the pedigree of a city councilman and years of experience throwing sharp elbows on the council.

He tore into Bing’s credibility by pointing out that for years Bing claimed he had received an undergraduate degree from Syracuse University in 1966, when in fact he had not finished the degree until 1995. Cockrel rhetorically asked how Bing could forget a major event such as graduating from college, which is as significant as having a child. The crowd erupted with mostly boos, but that didn’t dissuade Cockrel from his line of attack.

“If you ask the average person, they’ll probably tell you there are certain milestone moments in their life … that they’ll never, ever forget,” he said. “The average person probably has those documents either hanging on their wall in their home or their office.”

Minutes later, Cockrel went after Bing again, this time because Bing does not own a home in Detroit. Bing has lived in the Oakland County suburb of Franklin, but recently rented an apartment in Detroit.

“Given that you’ve only rented, not even bought, for few months, what is your real commitment to those neighborhoods and, if you lose, do you plan to live in the city of Detroit?” Cockrel asked.

Cockrel also tried to catch Bing off guard before the debate even started: Less than a hour before the debate, he disclosed his personal finances, which denied Bing the chance to attack Cockrel for not releasing his finances—a major point of contention between the campaigns.

Cockrel’s hardball tactics didn’t mean Bing failed. Instead of pounding away on Cockrel personally, Bing seemed to depend on the idea that Detroiters’ problems were so serious and so evident that he needed only to link Cockrel to the past.

Bing’s main thrust was that Detroiters have not become safer in the seven months Cockrel has been mayor; Bing said he would redeploy police officers from downtown to areas across the city.

“As we’re talking about all of these plans that are in an elongated process, the people in the city, in the neighborhoods still don’t feel safe,” he said. “Everyone should be looking at are we any better over these past seven months? And the answer is probably no.”

Bing too went after Cockrel. First, he subtly reminded voters that Cockrel’s council chief of staff was investigated by the FBI. Second, Bing allied himself with the Detroit City Council by saying it had not seen leadership from Cockrel while he served as its president.

“I don’t know why we have repeatedly seen no leadership from you,” Bing said, adding that city council members say Cockrel is “weak.”

Justin Miller is a political journalist based in Wayne County who has worked for Real Clear Politics, blogged for The Atlantic and covered the 2008 elections in Ohio for The New York Observer’s Politicker.com network of state politics news sites.