Archive for the ‘Maynard Jackson’ Category

A pollster called the East Lake home of one of my AJC colleagues, Aaron Gould Sheinin, last night. The topic was the mayoral runoff.

The first screen was whether anyone in the household worked in television or radio. No mention of newspapers.

While his wife answered the questions, Sheinin hopped on the other line and took notes. It was a long questionnaire – so long that the telemarketer fell asleep in the middle. Really.

The questions were equally tough on both Mary Norwood, the front-runner in last week’s voting, and Kasim Reed, who finished a surprisingly strong second. So it sounds more like a legitimate, theme-testing effort rather than a push poll.

Among the questions:

Q: What should be the top priority for the next mayor?

Q: Do you approve or disapprove of the current City Council and how its members are handling their jobs?

Q: Would the endorsement of someone like Lisa Borders make you more or less likely to support one of the candidates?

Q: Which is more important …

Continue reading A sleepy little poll about Atlanta’s runoff for mayor »

The conversation surrounding Atlanta’s mayoral runoff between Mary Norwood and Kasim Reed has already begun. In fact, it’s keeping some very late hours.

A string of e-mails has filtered through the city’s political class over the last three days, ending with a 4:14 a.m. Saturday note from Bunny Jackson-Ransom, ex-wife of the late mayor Maynard Jackson, promising to seek out “one black [Mary] Norwood supporter each day.”

Wrote Jackson-Ransom:

During the next few weeks, I intend to do whatever I can to wake up those African Americans who have become “bamboozled” into believing that a moderately educated, southern white women will do something for them. Obviously they have forgotten what Atlanta was like for our people before we had a Black Mayor. Yes, mistakes have been made; but we are surely not where we used to be.

But let’s walk it back a bit. This is a serious conversation that began with an extensive note from state Rep. Ralph Long, a real estate broker and …

Continue reading A late-night conversation about Atlanta’s mayoral runoff »

The decision by state Democratic party chairman Jane Kidd to jump into the Atlanta mayor’s race against front-runner Mary Norwood is drawing mixed reviews this morning.

Kidd declared that Norwood was a “duplicitous” Republican, and Atlanta was a Democratic town. Mailers saying so could be in the hands of voters as early as today.

We’d appreciate a PDF of the flyer, if someone with a scanner would be so kind.

Amy Morton of Georgia Women Vote, a Democratic activist armed with a blog, took Kidd’s side, with her headline: “No More Mrs. Nice Party.”

But Blog for Democracy has taken the opposite tack:

The Mayor of Atlanta is a term limited position – so the DPG has known for 8 years that Shirley Franklin, one of the highest ranking Democrats in the state and most visible in the nation, would be replaced. For 8 years, the DPG did diddly, or not much visibly, to build a farm team in order to have a viable Democratic candidate run for this seat….

The DPG wants Atlanta Democrats to …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Democratic party’s entry into ATL mayoral race drawing mixed reviews »

Keith Jennings (left) and William Boone, political scientists at Clark Atlanta University, hold a news conference at Paschal's restaurant. Bita Honarvar/bhonarvar@ajc.com

Today in the contest for mayor of Atlanta:

— Councilwoman Mary Norwood pointed to an audit of the city’s water services as proof that City Hall is in disarray;

— Council President Lisa Borders promised to get a little meaner, a little more aggressive, and accused Atlanta’s journalists of failing to subject Norwood’s record to scrutiny.

Responded Norwood:

If [Borders] thinks that the administration has been giving out good, accurate, and up-to-date financial information during the time she has been President of Council, she hasn’t been paying attention and needs to read the paper more.

— Gov. Sonny Perdue’s office just confirmed that Kasim Reed has resigned his state Senate seat, in preparation for his formal jump into the mayor’s race — set for Wednesday. Qualifying to replace Reed in the …

Continue reading Your multi-media mayoral wrap-up, and Reed on race: ‘Two Atlantas is not Atlanta at all’ »

Shirley Franklin called Friday afternoon with a stark description of the memo you’ve heard about — the one that frets over the possibility that Atlanta might choose a white mayor to succeed her in November.

“I think it was bigoted,” Franklin said. It was not a slip of the tongue. The mayor used multiple variations of the word.

But what seemed to offend Franklin just as much was what she called the “lopsided history of Atlanta and Atlanta politics” contained in the document.

The mayor said more, but we need to back up a bit.

The lengthy analysis that careened through e-mail accounts last week was distributed by Aaron Turpeau, a long-time City Hall veteran whose political career was capped by service as chief of staff to Maynard Jackson.

In an interview, Turpeau said the analysis was written by two academics associated with Clark Atlanta University on behalf of an “ad hoc” group called the Black Leadership Forum.

The memo was an attempt to form an agenda for …

Continue reading Franklin: ‘Black mayor first’ memo is ‘bigoted’ »