FightNight Insiders Put Kunkle on Top

Mike Rawlings

Boxers like Felipe Castenada and Calvin Shepherd duked it out last night at the annual FightNight fund-raiser, two days before the Dallas mayoral election. But after this week’s news stories, which had candidates Ron Natinsky and Mike Rawlings trading jabs and body blows, you were sort of hoping the mayoral hopefuls would show up and climb into the ring, too, and settle this thing once and for all. Alas, only two of them–Rawlings and Edward Okpa–were among the 1,000-plus attending the black-tie bash at the Hilton Anatole.

Okpa, decked out in a sharp, Little Anthony and the Imperials-looking suit, said (with a straight face) that, come Saturday, he expects to be in a runoff. Rawlings, for his part, declined to speculate about the outcome. “When I play a game, I play hard and don’t make predictions,” he said. “I let the scorecard take care of itself.” Meanwhile, political insiders attending the fund-raiser said that according to the latest internal polling it’s a very close race, with just four percentage points separating the top three contenders. David Kunkle is in the lead, the buzz had it, with Rawlings in second place and Ron Natinsky third.