With finish line near, mayoral race gets rough

By Eric Stirgus

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta mayoral race has come down to two questions.

Can presumed front-runner Councilwoman Mary Norwood win the majority of votes Tuesday and become the city’s first white mayor since 1974?

If not, who will compete against her in the Dec. 1 runoff?

Two polls released last week show Norwood with more than 40 percent of the vote. They also show former state lawmaker Kasim Reed has surpassed City Council President Lisa Borders, for the first time, in the race for second to possibly compete against Norwood in a runoff. Borders campaign spokeswoman Liz Flowers said internal polling shows the council president is still in second.

Attorney Jesse Spikes, who has loaned his campaign $321,000, is hoping voters will ignore polls showing him in single digits and focus on factors such as his education, which includes being a Rhodes scholar. Meanwhile, there’s no telling what impact candidates Tiffany Brown, Peter Brownlowe, Kyle Keyser and Duke Lewis will have on the race.

Longtime political consultant Beth Schapiro believes the key to the election is what percentage of African-Americans will support Norwood. The polls suggest at least 20 percent of black voters support Norwood. About 51 percent of Atlanta voters identify themselves as African-American. The polls suggest Norwood has as much as 70 percent support among white voters, who make up about 37 percent of the city’s electorate.

Taking to the airwaves

Borders unveiled a new TV spot Tuesday aimed at female voters, who make up 54 percent of the city’s electorate, and plans to premier another ad Thursday. Reed premiered a radio ad Wednesday with Brooke Jackson-Edmond, the daughter of the late Mayor Maynard Jackson, who was Atlanta’s first black mayor and considered the godfather of city politics until his death in 2003. Norwood unveiled her first two radio ads last week on urban-oriented stations in which citizens praise the candidate’s work ethic and commitment.

Each campaign says it will canvass across the city for votes in the final six days, which includes having supporters waving campaign signs, offering voters rides to the polls, mobile billboards and messages on Facebook and Twitter. Schapiro expects more back and forth between Borders and Reed as well as those two coming after Norwood.

“Put on your mud guards,” Schapiro said. “It’s going to be flying.”

Slinging the mud

The mud started flying Wednesday when Reed’s camp accused Norwood of buying the support of “Newsmakers,” a media franchise that produces an online journal and popular interview show geared toward the black community.

A spokesperson for Reed said the campaign was approached last week by Newsmakers to buy an ad on the Web site, because it was “considering” endorsing Norwood, who had already purchased space.

“It is not really about Newsmakers, but it is a pattern of behavior from Mary Norwood, who has consistently had to pay for what she cannot earn,” said Reed spokesman Reese McCranie. “The Norwood campaign is pulling the wool of voters’ eyes, especially African-American eyes.”

Jim Welcome, the organization’s publisher, said Norwood spent $400 to buy an ad on the site. At Wednesday’s news conference announcing Norwood’s endorsement, Welcome said Reed recently purchased an ad.

But McCranie said the campaign has not purchased anything.

“And we certainly wouldn’t now,” McCranie said.

Borders hasn’t purchased any ads on the site.

“It is really sad when people start making accusations when I have deep roots in the community and people come out to endorse me,” Norwood said. “It was humbling to get the endorsement from this organization.”

Norwood has frequently grilled Borders at debates, asking the council president how often she’s differed from Franklin on city matters. Norwood has been more critical than Borders of City Hall operations, noting at debates blunders like the city paying the Internal Revenue Service $1.6 million last month for making late payments last year to one of its pension plans and using the phrase “Enron-type accounting” to describe city bookkeeping.

Outgoing Mayor Shirley Franklin has pushed back at Norwood. Hard. For example, the mayor wrote Sunday in a blog entry on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Political Insider column that Norwood “has not demonstrated vision, competence or integrity in her public life as an elected official.”

Money to get word out

The economic recession has hurt campaign fund-raising drastically in a field of candidates who aren’t household names.

During the most recent campaign filing, July 1 to Sept. 30, Reed raised more than any other candidate, but he also spent more. Reed’s expenditures — a whopping $669,189 just in the quarter — left him with $213,124 for the final month of the campaign.

His campaign finance reports show that he spent $287,509, more than 42 percent of all his expenditures, on out-of-state companies. Much of that money was spent on top-of-the-line political consultants and pollsters, as well as advertising and television, radio and print buys made through those companies.

Concerned about name recognition, Reed spent lots of money with national campaign firms with proven track records.

Reed paid the Campaign Group, based in Philadelphia, $115,000 in three months. The firm has handled candidates across the country and the world, from Jerry Springer in Cincinnati to campaigns in Nigeria and Aruba. Reed paid Mansfield, Conn.-based Mission Control, their print ad company, more than $94,000.

Other out-of-state companies working for Reed include Washington-based companies that worked on President Barack Obama’s campaign.

“For a candidate who hasn’t run citywide before ... you always have the challenge of introducing yourself to a large number of voters,” said Reed spokesman McCranie.

Norwood, meanwhile, stockpiled her cash. Now reports show she is making major ad buys in the final weeks of the campaign.

In recent months, Norwood spent $45,877 with out-of-state consultants, and $182,165 total, about one-fourth what Reed spent. Coming into the final month of the race, Norwood had a balance of $620,594 — more than all the other candidates combined. Through out-of-state campaign firms, she now is making major ad buys to saturate local television while her opponents are fighting to stay on the air.

Borders spent $452,472 in recent months. Her war chest at the end of the quarter, $233,786, was only slightly better than Reed even though she had spent much less on advertising.

In recent weeks, her commercials have shown up mostly on cable television — a much smaller market share than local television.

Spikes spent more than Norwood in recent months and spent more on out-of-state consultants than Norwood or Borders. But he has spent little on television and much of his money on yard signs. Going into this final month, Spikes had the smallest war chest of the frontline candidates — $44,708.

Ultimately, former state Rep. Bob Holmes believes the race will depend on turnout. Fulton County officials, who will handle Atlanta’s election results, project 35 percent of the city’s 258,000 registered voters will cast ballots by Election Day. Turnout was 41 percent in 2001, when Franklin first won election in a tightly-contested campaign, and 23 percent in 2005 when Franklin cruised to re-election.

Holmes, a retired Clark Atlanta University political science professor, believes Norwood supporters are more energized about voting because they’re upset about the current state of city affairs. Still, he believes there will be a runoff between Norwood and either Borders or Reed.

And which candidate will it be?

“It’s really a pick ’em,” he said.

-- Staff writers Cameron McWhirter and Ernie Suggs contributed to this article.

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Check back today for coverage of Lisa Border's 10 a.m. press conference.