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The Atlanta Mayoral Race; Black & White and Woman to Woman

thoughtone

thoughtone

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Bernie Sanders stumped for Vincent Fort’s mayoral Sanders

Bernie Sanders Endorsed Atlanta Mayoral Candidate Vincent Fort

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Posted: 6:31 p.m. Saturday, September 30, 2017



U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders lent Atlanta mayoral hopeful Vincent Fort some of his star power Saturday in a rousing rally that was part sermon for “the 99 percent” and part call to arms to fight back against Washington.

Enthusiasitc Sanders fans — many of them white millennials — crowded into the sanctuary of Saint Philip AME Church to hear the man for whom they packed arenas and outdoor stadiums during his unsuccessful presidential run in 2016.

The throng, more than 2,400 in number, gave Sanders — Hillary Clinton’s rival for last year’s Democratic presidential nomination — and special guest, Atlanta rapper Killer Mike, the rock star treatment with screams and defeaning applause that shook the rafters as the duo entered the room with Fort.

“What this campaign is about is not just electing a progressive mayor,” Sanders said. “This campaign is about bringing forward a political revolution that revitalizes democracy and gives the people the hope and the belief that in this democracy we can have a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

Fort, no oratory slack himself, kept the crowd on its feet with his message on how he plans to address Atlanta’s gentrification and housing problems, decriminalizing marijuana and solving the issue of income inequality.

“I told Sen. Sanders that Atlanta is No. 1 in income inequality and immobility,” he said. “That a child born at Grady hospital this afternoon has the least chance than any place in this country of moving from poverty into the middle class.”

Sanders’ support is important to Fort. He’s hoping the issues he and Vermont’s independent senator share — free college tuition, criminal justice reform and a respect for worker’s rights— will help Fort capture the young voters who revere Sanders.

A connection to Sanders could also boost Fort’s poll numbers. Fort was in second place in a March Channel 2 Action News poll behind front-runner Mary Norwood, an Atlanta City Council member, with 9 perscent of the vote.

Five months later, he had slipped to sixth place at 6.1 percent of the vote in Channel 2’s August follow-up poll. A little more than 17 percent of voters in the August survey, however, said they were undecided or had no opinion, keeping hope alive among struggling campaigns. Thirteen people are competing in the race to succeed Kasim Reed as mayor. The election is set for Nov. 7.

Killer Mike told the crowd that he won’t vote for politicians. His vote, he said, will go to those who challenge the status quo and antagonize rather than capitulate.

Sanders concentrated a great deal of his firepower on Washington and the impact he says it has not only in the halls of Congress and at the White House but the trickle-down to everyday Americans. He said the effort to repeal and replace the health care law is an example of why Americans must stay vigilant and vote.

“In this great country, health care must be a right for all, not a privilege,” he said.

Later he told Fort he would call him to Washington to help the nation understand the importance of health care, especially single-payer policies he believes will help every American.

“Vincent, when the Democrats regain control of the Senate, I’m going to invite you as the mayor of this great city to testify why the people of Atlanta need a Medicare for all, single-payer system,” he said.
 
QueEx

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Atlanta Mayoral Race Might Be the One Bright Spot for Republicans After Tuesday Night



Jason Johnson
Wednesday
November 8, 2017


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Keisha Lance Bottoms and Mary Norwood (David Goldman/AP Images)

The Atlanta mayoral race was contentious and expensive and pitted just about every element of the city’s political class against one another. You had candidates with celebrity endorsements, candidates busted for getting Falcons tickets, two gay candidates and one who looked like an extra from Magic Mike.


The runoff in December will be between the top two vote getters:

Keisha Lance Bottoms, a 47-year-old black lawyer who has served on the City Council for eight years; and

Mary Norwood, a 65-year-old white woman who also sits on the City Council and unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2009 against Kasim Reed.​

The race will be a test of black political clout and organization in Atlanta and a sobering realization of how demographics are changing what was once America’s second “Chocolate City.”

Atlanta, like Washington, D.C., before it, is a chocolate city on the verge of a serious transformation. Rapid growth, mixed with poor mass transit and gentrification, has cut the city’s black population from 61 percent in 2000 to just under 54 percent in 2017. This has eroded the working-class base of black voters who have been the key to the city’s election of African-American mayors since the mid-1970s. Consequently, in Tuesday’s mayoral election, Bottoms garnered 26 percent of the vote, but the next three candidates, amounting to 39 percent of votes cast, were all white.

This is a wake-up call to black leadership that the city’s old ways of retaining political and economic power will have to change. Gone are the days when Atlanta’s mayoral races were defined by high-end battles between black political elites (the 20-year fight between Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young from the ’70s to the ’90s would make a great HBO miniseries). Now, thanks to their own shortsightedness, black power may be seeing its final days.

How else can you explain the success of Norwood, a senior citizen white woman running on a platform of police endorsements and “fighting crime” in an era of Black Lives Matter and in America’s most educated black city? While she may deny it, or compare it to cocaine (I’m not kidding), Norwood is a Republican, and the city has elected only two Republican mayors in almost 100 years.


Her success thus far is directly related to squabbles over power among Atlanta’s black political elites and their failure to realize the changes that have occurred in the city’s voting population under their watch. Not including Bottoms, six of the 12 candidates who ran for mayor in Atlanta were African American; that dilution of the black vote is one of the main reasons that white candidates were able to be so successful in this first round of voting.

THE ST. LOUIS EXAMPLE: If it weren’t for Bottoms’ aggressive ground game and a hearty endorsement from current Mayor Reed, Atlanta could have been another St. Louis, a city where, despite a demographic advantage, black leadership diluted the black vote so much that Lyda Krewson, a 64-year-old white woman running on a pro-police platform, defeated Tishaura Jones, a 45-year-old black woman and sitting city treasurer, by a mere 888 votes. In fact, given the similarities of the candidates and policies, St. Louis should be a cautionary tale to black leadership in Atlanta about forgoing short-term gains for long-term political-power building in the black community.

According to Atlanta political consultants I spoke with, Bottoms, with the help of Reed, as well as the consolidation of the black vote under one candidate, should beat Norwood, but it’s not a lock. Norwood is beating Bottoms by double digits among white voters in Atlanta, something that in years past would not have made a difference but in 2017 could tip the scales.


Bottoms may be the first modern, African-American Atlanta mayoral candidate who has to heavily court not just white money but also white voters in order to win the mayor’s mansion. It remains to be seen if black political leaders in the city will be smart enough to hold on to political power.


http://www.theroot.com/atlanta-mayor-s-race-might-be-the-one-bright-spot-for-r-1820260184


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QueEx

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
I don’t believe that I have ever posted the in-article comments to articles that I’ve posted on this board - - as I prefer reading the comments of BGOL’ers. I’m making an exception this time — we all might be interested and n the comments Atlantans are making in the heat of the battle:

Discussion
  • TheRealMarthaJones3.0Jason Johnson
    11/08/17 3:23pm
    The fact that Norwood has a chance in fucking Atlanta, is proof of what black people talk about when we talk about gentrification.

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    • burnthismuthadown wants Tokers Town feathersTheRealMarthaJones3.0
      11/08/17 4:44pm
      When I lived there (94-98), Norwood would not have even bothered.

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      Reply


    • TheRealMarthaJones3.0TheRealMarthaJones3.0
      11/08/17 5:10pm
      Dear Grey Person,

      You asked

      Why shouldn’t Norwood have a chance in Atlanta? Who says the mayor HAS to be BLACK?

      Well, The same way you only trust orange creamsicle white men with dead ferrets on top of their heads. Is the same way I only trust black women.

      xoxo

      MJ

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      Reply


    • Ugh.TheRealMarthaJones3.0
      11/08/17 7:13pm
      Yeah, like...

      “Keisha Lance Bottoms, a 47-year-old black lawyer who has served on the City Council for eight years; and Mary Norwood, a 65-year-old white woman who also sits on the City Council and unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2009 against Kasim Reed.”

      ‘09 ain’t that far back. If she wins...that’s a pretty questionable surge in “confidence.”

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    • borgohurisTheRealMarthaJones3.0
      11/08/17 8:50pm
      The same way you only trust orange creamsicle white men with dead ferrets on top of their heads.

      from article

      a senior citizen white woman

      If only words could kill, us Black folks would have had this world by now. Note: you were far more creative and inventive but it’s worth noting that I haven’t met one white woman that won’t start to tear up at the mere mention of them being old even if they are and certainly look it.

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      Reply

    FriedneckbonesJason Johnson
    11/08/17 2:54pm
    I’m never hopeful when these type of situations arise. The “I’m gonna get mine” mentality will do us in every time. Instead of looking at this strategically and thinking of an over arching long term plan for the city, it’s the fighting over a slice of pie to only be left with crumbs.

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  • DannyOJason Johnson
    11/08/17 3:03pm
    It will definitely be close in the runoff. In 2009 Kasim Reed beat Norwood by less than 800 votes. I don’t have demographics data right in front of me, but I would bet my next paycheck that the city of Atlanta is whiter in 2017 than it was in 2009, and as you state, Norwood does very well with white voters. It is vital for Bottoms to have excellent GOTV efforts on election day. Otherwise Atlanta will likely have its first white mayor since the 70's, and arguably its most conservative mayor since the 60's.

    Bottoms may be hurt by the fact that she is closely associated with the outgoing mayor, whose administration is mired in corruption allegations and indictments. It will be a very interesting race to the finish line.

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    Reply

    • WV399DannyO
      11/09/17 9:05am
      Atlanta is DRAMATICALLY different since 2009! Gentrification is everywhere. The greatest change has occurred in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, surrounding the King Center. In an area formerly of projects and Section 8 along with generationally owned homes, we now have $1500 studios (very expensive for Atlanta) and $600k townhomes. Naturally the previous occupants can’t afford this. The West End, where Morehouse and Spelman are is next. Home prices are already zooming, and it will be a repeat of Grant Park in the late 90s. You can already buy organic, gluten free cupcakes in downtown East Point.

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      Reply

  • gigigerlJason Johnson
    11/08/17 6:15pm
    The self-centered, egotistical, narcissim of the Black Bougie who now primarily make up the Black“Political Class” in America have did little or nothing to help average African Americans, predominately Black communities, and most especially, nothing to help or save the few remaining predominately Black cities in America from having control taken out of the hands of Black people, right before implementing “policies”, etc. to displace the Black population.

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  • The Mouth of the SouthJason Johnson
    11/08/17 3:42pm
    The 3 main white candidates and 4 main black candidates both got the same percentage of the vote, 49%. Exit polls haven’t come out yet but I bet that the racial makeup was nearly equal and I doubt that there was much racial crossover. Cathy Woodard was one of the more liberal candidates in the race but I doubt here supporters jump to Keisha. In Atlanta, and much of the south, race is still the predominant indicator in elections.

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    • sidd flinchThe Mouth of the South
      11/08/17 3:55pm
      I hope you’re wrong. I voted for Woolard over Lance-Bottoms in the primary because the Kasim Reed administration has been too corrupt/cozy with developers (gentrification and expanding income inequality over the past eight years hasn’t happened in a vacuum), and with Reed’s endorsement, Lance-Bottoms seemed like an extension of that.

      Regardless, I’ll definitely be voting for Lance-Bottoms the runoff. There’s no way in hell I or anyone I know who voted in the primary for Woolard, Vincent Fort, Kwanza Hall, Ceasar Mitchell, or just about anyone else, will be voting for a Republican mayor. The best Norwood can hope for is lower Dem turnout, *significantly* higher Republican turnout, and to peel off some of the folks who voted for Peter Aman in the primary.

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      Reply
​
 
QueEx

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
What Sam Massell and Shirley Franklin said about Atlanta’s mayoral runoff


By Jim Galloway
AJC
November 10, 2017


Filed in: Atlanta Mayor Race, Kasim Reed, Keisha Lance Bottoms, MARTA, Mary Norwood, Shirley Franklin


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Atlanta will elect a woman as mayor in 2017. Keisha Lance Bottoms
(left) and Mary Norwood will face off in a Dec. 5 runoff. AJC file


Over the next 25 days, Keisha Lance Bottoms and Mary Norwood will attempt to reshape the race for mayor of Atlanta in terms that will give one of them at least 50 percent of the vote. Plus one more.

Both are members of the Atlanta City Council. Gender doesn’t separate them, but age and race do. Each has a quiver of different arrows that could appeal to the three-quarters of Atlanta voters who picked someone else last Tuesday.

Touchstones in the four-week runoff will surely include race, economic stability, transportation, housing, party identification, and corruption. But if you really want to know where the race for mayor of Atlanta is headed, it helps to know someone who’s been there.

On Thursday, I shared a stage with the author of a biography of Sam Massell – and the 90-year-old former mayor himself. The book focuses on Massell’s role as the city’s “first minority mayor.”

Massell is Jewish. His four-year administration followed the WASPish Ivan Allen. In 1973, he lost a re-election bid to Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first African-American mayor.

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Former Atlanta mayor Sam Massell and his wife
Sandra Gordy leave White House Restaurant in
Buckhead in this July 2017 file photo. HYOSUB
SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM

Massell, who is out to ruin the concept of retirement for the rest of us, remains head of the Buckhead Coalition, a group of businesses devoted to the encouragement of economic development in that part of Atlanta.

Massell spoke highly of incumbent Mayor Kasim Reed. He called the prospect of a MARTA rail line connecting Emory University and Buckhead, which Reed has helped put together, “the most exciting thing to happen to Atlanta in my lifetime.”

At my prodding, and in front of a sizeable book festival audience at the Marcus Jewish Community Center in Dunwoody, Massell addressed the coming runoff.

“Kasim is not going to let his legacy go by without the strongest possible effort to protect it. Keisha Lance Bottoms is his ally, his protegee, his friend. He’s endorsed her, strongly, and raised money for her.

“Incidentally, I think he’s done a good job as a mayor,” Massell said. “His temper’s worse than mine, but otherwise, in my opinion, he’s represented us very well.”

But Massell also said this: “The black community is not going to give up the mayorship with ease. That’s pretty heady wine. You’re going to see, in my opinion, sub rosa appeals for a black ticket.”

He knows whereof he speaks. In “Play It Again, Sam: The Notable Life of Sam Massell,” author Charles McNair tells of that 1973 mayoral runoff that pitted Massell against Jackson.

Massell, the incumbent, had finished a distant second. He needed a spark for his campaign. A friend, Ralph McGill Jr., son of the newspaper columnist, came up with a headline that topped an ad late in the runoff: “Atlanta’s too young to die.”

Even now, Massell insists he intended no racial undertone. But a rising black electorate thought they heard it.

Forty-four years later, Norwood may be in a similar position as she heads toward a Dec. 5 runoff.

In the general election, as she did eight years ago in her first mayoral race against Reed, Norwood fended off accusations that she is a closet Republican – even as Bottoms portrayed herself as “the Democrat for mayor.”

Municipal elections are nonpartisan, and Norwood insists she’s an independent.

Yet the issue has kept her on the defensive. Two days after she made it into the runoff, Norwood hired Billy Linville as communication director for her campaign. Linville has worked for Democrats Roy Barnes and Zell Miller. More important, he handled press for both of Shirley Franklin’s mayoral campaigns.

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Former Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin in an
August 2017 file photo. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN
@AJC.COM


Norwood can answer attempts to label her as a member of the GOP by raising an even more volatile issue: The federal corruption investigation at City Hall, which has already resulted in three guilty pleas.

For Norwood, who is white, the danger is that such an attack could be construed in racial terms. A strong African-American ally would be helpful.

“The most important quality in a mayor for me is honesty and integrity. I’d like to see a little humility, before I get to what color they are, what age they are, what gender they are,” said Shirley Franklin, the former mayor.

This was Wednesday, the day after the first round of voting. We were talking about corruption as an issue in the runoff — and the possibility of a racial backlash if Norwood were to use it.

“I would raise it no matter what color I was. I raise it, and not everybody who’s black wants me to raise it,” Franklin said.

“I cannot remember a time where we had three guilty pleas around bribery and conspiracy, and a million dollars in a bribe, all around procuring,” the former mayor said. “In my view, that’s the elephant in the room. Who’s honest? Who can I trust? And who do I believe on that issue?”

I asked Franklin if she might make an endorsement in the runoff. “I might. I haven’t decided,” she replied. And then moved past the interruption to pursue her topic.

As mayor, Franklin followed Bill Campbell, who served three years in a federal prison. But on tax evasion charges, his successor pointed out.

“This is very different from that,” Franklin said. “This says, if you want a contract in the city, more than one person believes that they have to spend a million dollars to do that.”

Franklin said she wants the issue addressed in this runoff, and then sent a volley in the direction of Mayor Reed.

“This notion that the adequate response is, ‘I’m cooperating with the U.S. attorney’s office’ —- it’s not adequate,” she said. “Of course, you cooperate with the U.S. attorney. Only a fool wouldn’t. Have you ever met anybody who’s not cooperating with the U.S. attorney?

“The adequate answer is ‘I own that this problem happened on my watch,’” Franklin said.

She wasn’t talking just about the man who replaced her, Franklin insisted. Two sitting council members are still running for mayor. Two more are running for city council president.

All need to weigh in on the topic of corruption in Atlanta City Hall, she said. Mary Norwood, too.


http://politics.blog.myajc.com/2017...-franklin-said-about-atlantas-mayoral-runoff/


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QueEx

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Atlanta mayoral runoff:

Bottoms declares victory in Atlanta mayoral race; Norwood seeks recount

By Stephen Deere ,
J. Scott Trubey and
Greg Bluestein
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


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Atlanta mayoral candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms delivers her victory speech to supporters during a runoff election
night party at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017, in Atlanta. BRANDEN CAMP/SPECIAL
Updated: 1:17 a.m. Wednesday, December 06, 2017 | Posted: 10:00 p.m. Tuesday, December 05, 2017

With all precincts reporting, Keisha Lance Bottoms appeared to have won the Atlanta mayor’s race, beating Mary Norwood.

Unofficial returns showed that Bottoms garnered [JUST] 759 more votes :eek2::eek2::eek2: than Norwood in the runoff election on Tuesday – a virtual repeat of the 2009 race when Mayor Kasim Reed defeated Norwood by 714 votes.

Norwood was unwilling to concede. She said that the absentee military ballots wouldn’t be counted until Thursday, that the campaign did not know how many provisional votes had been cast, and that it was unclear if votes from two precincts in recently annexed areas of DeKalb County had been counted.

“We can’t call this yet,” Norwood said, shortly after midnight to supporters. Norwood said that she would also ask for a recount.

At the same time Norwood was speaking, Bottoms was declaring victory at the Hyatt Regency in downtown.

“This is about Atlanta,” Bottoms said. “And what we said from Day One is that this is about what we hope this city can be for our children’s children.”

Bottoms then said she was honored to be Atlanta’s 60th mayor and only the second woman to hold the city’s top post.

Some voters said they made up their minds at the last minute, at the ballot box.

Travis Copeland arrived at his west end polling precinct with his decision for Atlanta mayor still up in the air.

He said he wanted to see the city “continue on the path that it’s on” — but that didn’t mean he was going to back Bottoms.

“I’m a maybe for Bottoms at best,” said Copeland, a 30-year-old who works in the airline industry. “But progress is important, especially in the southside. We’re lagging behind, and we need new development.”

In the runoff race, Bottoms most significant challenge was convincing voters her administration would not be an extension of Mayor Kasim Reed’s. The mayor’s endorsement of Bottoms in October seemed to vault her to the front in a 12-way contest in the general election. But he was heavily criticized for some of the comments he’s made during the runoff campaign. Two weeks ago, when City Council President Ceasar Mitchell endorsed Norwood, Reed described Mitchell and Norwood as “one man, one woman, two losers.”

At the last televised debate between the two candidates on Sunday, Bottoms said those Reed’s words not hers.

Reed is leaving office with City Hall under the cloud of a federal bribery investigation. He has never been identified as a person of interest in that investigation and has pledged to cooperate with federal authorities.

Bottoms has said questioning whether her administration would be an extension of Reed’s is sexist and “an affront to every woman like my mother who raises girls to be strong women.”

But Norwood cited a moment when Bottoms said the only difference between her Reed was that she could smile when she cut you.

For Norwood, the challenge was putting distance between herself and the Republican Party.

In the waning days of the campaign, ads by the Democrat Party of Georgia said electing Norwood would be the equivalent to handing the city over to President Donald Trump.

Norwood was also recorded telling a group of young Republicans in Buckhead that the reason she lost a runoff election to Reed in 2009 was partly due to voter fraud.

Norwood has identified herself as a “progressive independent.” She has repeatedly said that she voted for former President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

At Sunday’s debate, she defended the allegations she made about voter manipulation, saying she had the names of people who were “coerced” to voting in jurisdictions in which they didn’t live.

In some cases, the Republican label was too much for voters to overcome. Casting his ballot at Oakland Missionary Baptist Church, Edward Barnes voted against Mary Norwood.

“I definitely wasn’t voting for a Republican, which I know Norwood is,” he said.

Some of the most sought after group of voters were the progressives who cast ballots for former State Senator Vincent Fort and former City Council President Cathy Woolard in the general election.

Fort declined to endorse anyone, but called Norwood a viable option.

After questioning both candidates at a forum a week before the election, Woolard endorsed Norwood.

At least one of Woolard’s supporters followed her lead.

Josh Jones, 25, a yoga teacher, said he voted for Norwood after Woolard backed her.

He said corruption in city hall was a big issue for him.

“People want somebody they can trust and who can keep Atlanta growing, because it’s booming,” he said. “Housing especially is a big deal.”

Hillary Bolle, a writer who lives in Midtown, reluctantly cast her vote for Norwood

“I wasn’t thrilled with either candidate,” said Bolle, who voted for Mitchell in November.

“There’s a lot about Keisha Lance Bottoms that makes me nervous with the corruption in city hall and the fact she didn’t pay her water bill,” said Bolle.

Bolle said it “gave her pause” to vote for a white candidate in a diverse city that has had black leadership for so long, but she didn’t feel Bottoms was an ethical candidate.


http://www.myajc.com/news/local-gov...norwood-seeks-recount/773zOgVXyEFawVmbKwD4uN/


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