Conceding that triggering a recall vote may not be an attainable goal, opponents of Mayor Francis Slay now have a new objective: “moral victory.”

Veteran activist Zaki Baruti says that the petition movement currently has about 14,000 signatures, well short of the roughly 43,000 needed to force a vote.

Rather, Baruti said the new goal is 19,500 names, a number equal to the amount of votes Slay received in the 2005 general election.

That would send a signal of “serious discontent,” said Baruti, who spoke to KMOX earlier.

The signatures could then be used, Baruti suggested, as an anti-Slay database that could benefit an opponent.

Unseating Slay — either by recall or a regular election — is a tall order. While his foes have been collecting thousands of signatures, Slay has been banking hundreds of thousands to fortify his re-election account.