The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Voters pare crowded field
Outcome not clear as votes trickle in. Mayor Reed weighs in on his successors. Race could still play a part as runoff looms.
Election Day began with outgoing Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed using his bully pulpit and social media presence to attack would-be successors who cast aspersions on his legacy.
It ended with robocall from a disgraced political consultant embroiled in the Atlanta City Hall bribery scandal.
For the past six months, the city has endured a grueling and befuddling contest with eight credible candidates vying to replace Reed.
And by late Tuesday evening, the outcome was still not clear. Election authorities in Fulton and
DeKalb counties were still tallying ballots — turning the evening into a cliffhanger of unanswered questions: Would the city have a white leader for the first time in 44 years? Were previous polls accurate? Did any candidate earn a surprise spot in the December runoff ?
This past Friday, a Landmark Communications poll released this past Friday showed Councilwoman Keisha Lance Bottoms taking the lead in the race for the first time, though her margin over fellow City Councilwoman Mary Norwood was within the margin of error.
But all predictions called for a low voter turnout, making a surprise victory more possible.
After casting his own ballot Tuesday morning, former Fulton County Chairman John Eaves remarked that the “exceptionally low” turnout rendered previous polling irrelevant. Eaves, who had 2.6 percent of voters supporting him in the latest poll said he felt “cautiously optimistic” about getting into a December runoff.
The multiplicity of campaign materials and slogans have vexed voters who struggled to decipher messages.
Some even arrived at the polls on Tuesday still undecided about the candidate for whom they would cast their ballot.
“There’s too many candidates. I changed my mind twice this morning,” said Wanda Breach, 71, as she walked toward the Metropolitan Library in southwest Atlanta to vote. “I just had to come and vote, but I am still up in the air.”
Today the most expensive mayor’s race in Atlanta history – with more than $10 million raised so far by the major candidates – likely shifts into runoff overdrive in what will become a bare-knuckled fight to the finish Dec. 5.
Transportation, affordable housing and public safety will be key issues in the runoff, but so too will be ethics and the overhang of the federal City Hall bribery investigation.
Another shadow looming over the race will be that of the man the two finishers seek to replace: Mayor Kasim Reed.
Reed responds
Mayor Kasim Reed’s office on the eve of Atlanta’s mayoral election issued a press release attacking candidate Peter Aman, the city’s former chief operating officer.
Then, this morning, Reed posted a picture of a graphic depicting city councilwomen Keisha Lance Bottoms and Mary Norwood at the top of the polls.
“ATLANTA DON’T WASTE YOUR VOTE,” it says. “THIS HAS NOW BECOME A TWO PERSON RACE.”
While the Facebook post appeared on Reed’s personal account, the press release was sent via a city email address and was written by a city staffer.
Rick Thompson, the former head of the Georgia State Ethics Commission, said neither message appeared to violate prohibitions on using public agencies for campaign purposes, but the press release came close.
Aman had criticized Bottoms and other councilmembers in a front-page story in The Atlanta Journal Constitution on Sunday. Aman said anybody on the city council who was running for mayor “had green blood on their hands” and that Reed had privately urged city airport contractors to donate to Bottoms’ campaign.
“Given the cloud of corruption that covers City Hall right now, I am surprised the mayor would come perilously close to misusing public resources to issue an obviously false statement,” said Aman in a written statement.
Reed’s Facebook post also contained erroneous polling numbers. The mayor’s office declined to answer a question about why.
At least one thing became clear on Tuesday: the woman behind a weekend robocall that featured an unidentified female voice encouraging residents all over the city to “vote the full ballot.”
It was, in fact, Mitzi Bickers, a former prominent political consultant who largely vanished from the political spotlight when her name surfaced in connection with the federal probe into city hall this past January.
After a story about the robocall appeared in Tuesday’s AJC, Bickers sent out another round of calls a couple of hours prior to polls closing, including one to the newspaper. This time she identified herself and urged people to get to the polls.
Bickers helped Kasim Reed win his first race for mayor in 2009 by a razor thin margin over Norwood.
On Tuesday, a former city of Atlanta worker who used to work for Bickers, pleaded guilty to a single count of trying to intimidate a federal witness. Shandarrick Barnes admitted to throwing a brick through the window of city contractor Elvin “E.R.” Mitchell Jr., the government’s star witness in the bribery investigation.
The ‘black slate’
Cars or buses plastered with a candidate’s face circled the streets in southwest Atlanta, while folks near at least three polling precincts waved a sign declaring: “Vote the black slate.” Flyers were distributed atop cars parked near Metropolitan Library to reinforce that message.
Robert Harris, a 68-yearold retiree, said he voted for Councilwoman Keisha Lance Bottoms because the city desperately needs a “fresh face and a fresh start.” He said he’s fully prepared for a Bottoms matchup in December against Councilwoman Mary Norwood in a runoff.
James Wentz, 44, works as an assistant principal at Riverside Intermediate in Cobb County and lives in Midtown. He said he would vote for Norwood because of her support for the LGBTQ community and her pledge to make city hall more transparent and accountable.
“I just want them to keep pushing to be more inclusive, especially with the police force,” he said. Since the presidential election, “it seems like everyone is angry and people are becoming more intolerant.”
Wentz was also concerned about housing affordability. His rent went up $200 this year.
Other voters thought all the candidates carried baggage to some extent.
When Jim Thompson, a building maintenance technician, looks at Bottoms, he sees a Reed acolyte and yet another centrist democrat who puts the economic benefit of the city over neighborhood concerns.
Thompson, 58, is suspicious of Peter Aman’s ties to Bain Capital. The private equity firm is known for using leveraged buyouts to take over companies, then slashing budgets to maximize profits at expense of workers and customers.
Thompson said he was also leery of former City Council candidate Cathy Woolard’s lobbying connections.
In the end, Thompson said he would vote for Kwanza Hall because of improvements he’s seen in Hall’s District 2, which includes Midtown.
But Thompson also found Hall’s campaign dull and confusing.
Despite the dubious nature of the choices, Thompson had no doubt about the importance of the election.
“It’s the most transformative election since Maynard,” he said, referring to Atlanta’s first black mayor Maynard Jackson.
Run-off looms
Race will likely continue to play a role as the runoff looms. A robocall recently hit much of the city calling for voters to “keep Atlanta black,” and vote for Bottoms. Bottoms disavowed the ad and called for an investigation by state prosecutors.
But the chief task of the two candidates who make the run off will be consolidating support — possibly from people with whom they traded barbs and maybe even the mayor.
Though both Aman and Bottoms maintained close ties to Reed through the campaign, Aman started to break away after Reed endorsed the councilwoman.
Reed accused Aman, an unabashed Democrat, of lying when his former COO alleged Reed pushed airport vendors to back Bottoms and slammed what he called “an apparently unethical City Hall culture.”
Reed also attacked fellow Democrats Fort, Mitchell, Woolard and Eaves at various times in the race.
Reed not only endorsed Bottoms, he put substantial political capital behind her push to become the second African-American female mayor of Atlanta.
If Bottoms doesn’t earn a spot and Norwood does, will Reed support a Democrat against a woman, whom some have called a closet Republican?
It’s just one of the many questions left unanswered late Tuesday.