With the widow of late Memphis basketball legend Larry Finch present in support, Ken Moody opened his challenge of Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris Thursday, Jan. 6, in Overton Square.

And it sounded a lot like Jim Strickland’s successful challenge of incumbent A C Wharton in the 2015 Memphis Mayor’s race.

The former University of Memphis basketball player who was coached by Finch and is an assistant to Strickland, told a group of 30 supporters at Hattiloo Theatre there is a “lack of commitment” by Harris. He also said Harris’ administration has “failed to support” the city of Memphis and the six suburban towns and cities.

Moody talks challenging Harris in Democratic county mayor’s primary

“You can’t sit back and show up at events to cut ribbons,” he said. “When was the last time when one of our children was killed and you saw our county mayor stand with the (Memphis) mayor?”

The rhetoric mirrors Strickland’s in a campaign that ended with only the second upset of an incumbent city mayor in the 54-year history of the mayor-council form of government.

“The one area that I saw that lacked the commitment and lacked the service to move the city forward was in the county mayor’s office,” Moody said of his recent experience in city government, first as a division director during the tenure of former Mayor Willie Herenton and since 2016 as an assistant to Strickland.

Lee Harris formally launches re-election campaign

“Nothing was more obvious in these last six years that I have seen — a lack of willingness in that administration to partner with municipalities but more importantly to partner with Memphis,” Moody said. “This county government specifically in these last 3½ years has failed to support city government and municipalities. And that is what you will get from me as county mayor.”

During his tenure with Herenton, Moody’s division included responsibility for Memphis Animal Services. Moody was criticized for his handling of problems at the shelter.

As Wharton succeeded Herenton following Herenton’s resignation in 2009, the city animal shelter was shut down by authorities on Wharton’s first day in office in an investigation of allegations of cruelty and neglect.

Moody has acknowledged the problems on his watch and beyond. He said in September, as he announced his exploratory campaign, that he has learned from those problems.

Morgan opens county mayoral bid with criticism of pandemic response

Moody announced an exploratory campaign this past September and pulled a qualifying petition for the Democratic mayoral primary just before Christmas.

Harris launched his re-election campaign last month with a set of second-term goals including improving access to health care and pledging to be part of a Democratic effort up and down the general election ballot, as he did in 2018, if he wins the May primary.

Democrats took every countywide office, including mayor, in the 2018 elections. Democrats also improved their majority on the 13-member Shelby County Commission to eight seats.

Watch: Harris talks law enforcement bonuses, gun laws and re-election

The results were a reversal of the 2010 county elections in which Republicans swept every countywide office on the ballot and the 2014 elections in which Republicans swept those same offices.

Democrats kept the Assessor’s office in their column in 2014 as the office moved from the other even-year county election cycle to the one that includes every other county office except General Sessions Court Clerk.

Harris has staked out a different set of issues with ties to national issues during his tenure as mayor.

“The only thing I focus on is talking to voters and trying to understand what their needs are and trying to convince them that I am the best candidate to advocate for those needs,” he told The Daily Memphian last month.

“I won’t get distracted with respect to issues that in my view don’t matter to folks in this community,” he said.

Harris has touted as accomplishments of his current term county funding toward early childhood education, paid parental leave for county employees and “really being the tip of the spear when it comes to livable wages.”

In many ways, it is the opposite of Strickland’s “brilliant at the basics” theme from 2015 and again in his 2019 re-election campaign that emphasizes basic services and has governed the approach of his administration for the past six years.

Haushalter resigns as Health Department head after more vaccine bombshells

Moody plans to have a lot to say about the county’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which last year saw Gov. Bill Lee end the Shelby County Health Department’s handling of vaccine distribution and shift it to the city of Memphis over problems in the distribution.

Lee also specifically criticized Harris’ administration for its “lack of leadership.”

“It is fresh on everybody’s mind how this administration handled the pandemic,” Moody said Thursday. “You remember when testing started, you had to wait four or five hours to get a test and the results took forever and there was no contact tracing. You will hear us talk more about how on the city side we offered some support for testing and that was turned down.”

Released emails show early vaccine questions between Memphis, county health officials

Harris and most of the Democratic county commissioners have defended the county’s handling of the distribution, which included the resignation of former Shelby County Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter. They have instead criticized Lee and his administration for seizing on problems in an unprecedented public health crisis and limiting the county’s options in handling the pandemic at the local level.

“They failed. They failed totally,” Moody said of Harris’ administration. “I think we all want to come out of this pandemic and move forward. I don’t want to make the pandemic political. But it shows a lack of leadership. … That one time where county government could have stepped in, it failed.”

No evidence of vaccine irregularities, Harris says

Memphis City Council member Worth Morgan is running in the companion Republican primary on the May ballot. He opened his bid with similar criticism of how Harris’ administration handled the distribution of testing and vaccines and its general handling of the pandemic.

Harris has indicated he doesn’t take either challenge lightly.

“We’ve got to get through a primary,” he said last month. “All of these things are going to be formidable challenges.”

State concludes health department needs more training, better chain of command

Moody acknowledged that the county charter limits the powers of the county mayor compared to the powers the Memphis mayor has. But he said the county mayor can act to bring together other elected leaders for a countywide approach to issues like crime.

“It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison,” Moody said. “But there are definitely some best practices that work in city government that we will take over to county government. … The county mayor doesn’t appoint a police chief, but the county mayor is more than the mayor of unincorporated Shelby County.”