U-City is so politely non-partisan and progressive in its values, that you likely won't hear any mud-slinging in this race.

This mayoral race does kind of remind me though of Marit Clark running against Clarence Harmon. Both Welsch and Adams live in U-City's diverse 2nd city council district between Olive and Delmar.

I'm not sure you could find many issues on which Marit and Harmon agreed. And there was plenty of mudslinging in that race.

Her campaign (which began as a Democratic candidate and ended as an independent) measured how far -- at least in 1997 -- a third party candidate still had to come.

She would have been an interesting and articulate mayor.

Come on, publiceye, look at all the similarities between the two elections. Welsch and Clark are both White women. Adams and Harmon are both Black men. Welsch is running against Adams in a general election. Clark and Harmon ran against each other in a general election. Welsch is a sitting University City councilwoman and Clark was a sitting St. Louis City alderwoman. What are the odds of history repeating itself like this?

You know what would be really eerie? A third candidate getting into the University City mayor's race.

Adams is an incumbent mayor. In 1997, Harmon was not yet an incumbent. (Incumbent Bosley had been eliminated by Harmon in the primary, so the general election among Harmon, a Republican and Clark was not incumbent vs. challenger(s).)

More interesting is the continuing friction and rivalry between African Americans and liberal white women. It surfaced in the redistricting fights in 2001 when powerful women Democrats lobbied hard against creating two north county senate districts that blacks could win in order to add some reliably Democrat black votes to the then-Republican 24th District to enable a liberal white woman Democrat to win. They got their way: Joan Bray won the 24th District, and there's still just one north county black district. And many of the African American voters who got put in the 24th instead of the 13th or 14th live in U City. The mayoral contest in which a liberal white woman is challenging an African American incumbent could reopen old wounds.

These mayoral races are quite similar.

These mayoral races are quite dissimilar.

Who said that discussion ever settled anything? It settles nothing. We all still believe whatever we saw/heard/believed in the first place. Micro, macro, don't matter none.