Earlier today, the Austin Chronicle debuted the Hustle for Mayor, a series of one-on-one video interviews with the city’s mayoral candidates. Over the last few weeks, Brewster McCracken, Lee Leffingwell, Josiah Ingalls, and David Buttross – all the candidates that agreed to meet – sat for wide-ranging discussions with the Chronicle’s Wells Dunbar. The results are in-depth and unhurried conversations spanning the election’s most important issues: local responses to the recession, tough budget decisions, leadership styles, transportation solutions, public safety, and more.

Highlights include Leffing­well naming McCracken as a supporter of the expensive, abandoned public safety salary premium (a charge McCracken dismisses as “invented”); Leffingwell responding to progressive criticism; McCracken addressing his silence on rail this election; Ingalls’ passionate defense of the homeless; Buttross’ surprising stance on federal stimulus dollars, and much more.

The first episode, a two-part interview with McCracken is online right now; it and all the subsequent interviews will be accompanied by summaries and analysis in the pages of the Chronicle. Interviews with Leffingwell, Ingalls, Buttross, and more will be posted online each day leading up to the start of early voting Monday, April 27. Watch the Hustle for Mayor starting now at at austinchronicle.com/hustle.

This article appears in April 17 • 2009.

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