Atlanta candidate Jesse Spikes has an outsider’s chance

But a rousing life story alone doesn’t win elections. Money, inner drive, name recognition, organization and timing all play big parts, and Spikes is being tested in those areas.

Last year, the first-time candidate put on a surprising sprint to become one of the race’s fund-raising front-runners. But that momentum has slowed considerably. He is now largely a self-financed candidate dwelling in the low single digits in a recent poll — 2 percent according to one — and running a distant fourth in what is largely seen as a three-person race.

In June 2008, Spikes reported more than 170 contributors, including 50 colleagues from his law firm. This June, he had just 22 donors, forcing him to donate $250,000 of his own funds to keep the campaign afloat.

In the reporting period ending June 30, Spikes’ campaign spent $220,000 but took in only $41,000 in contributions. It spent $27,000 on fund-raising. It had $201,000 on hand July 1.

Observers such as Councilman H. Lamar Willis summed up Spikes in a commonly held perception: “Nice guy, clearly successful, a complete outsider.”

But another belief is Spikes is waiting too long to make his move.

“Jesse had a window of opportunity, but it is closing quickly,” Willis said. “I don’t think he introduced himself to the community fast enough. You can’t just hand your résumé out and they’ll vote for you.”

‘I’m not a politician’

In an interview last week, the candidate, in a starched monogrammed shirt with suspenders and a power tie, dismissed his barely perceptible poll showing. Voters have not yet looked hard at the candidates, he said. He vows he’ll make a surge during the two-month sprint to the Nov. 3 election.

Spikes sees his lack of political experience as a positive. Those with experience, he said, have made a mess of the city.

“I’m not a politician. I’m not running to be in politics. I’m running to have an impact on this city. I want to fix this — and then go home. It’s time to tell the politicians: ‘No, not this time.’ ”

There is public anger with a perceived lack of safety, high water bills, and a city stuck in a financial morass. “You can’t get anyone when you call City Hall. And when you do, they’re not nice to you,” he said.

Spikes is banking on his outsider status drawing voters tired of the status quo. He said his experience is broad and his methods are steady and meticulous.

He will not name the clients he has represented, but said his experience is in insurance, international banking, mergers and acquisitions, contract negotiations and dealings with the city, state and federal governments. Partners at McKenna average earnings of $560,000 a year, according to the Fulton Daily Report’s annual law firm survey.

Spikes, who chaired the Fulton County elections board in the 1990s, has done what most high-paid corporate attorneys do best — avoid controversy.

He believes the many internal investigations he has performed will help him get to the root of city problems. “I offer a skill set no one else in this race can match,” he said. “And a breadth of life experience.”

Spikes knows his name recognition is not the same as that of Councilwoman Mary Norwood, Council President Lisa Borders or state Sen. Kasim Reed. Asked about the loan he recently made to the campaign, he smiled. “I believe in what I’m doing. We need the financial wherewithal to tell our story. If we do that, we can make it.”

A different path

Spikes’ tale begins on a tenant farm near McDonough. He was the youngest of 13 children, born to a father with a second-grade education. He attended the segregated Henry County Training School; here, city kids kidded their country counterparts as bumpkins.

His family grew cotton and corn and tended a garden. He slopped hogs and chopped wood for the kitchen stove. He’s probably the only candidate who knows it is sometimes too cold to kill a hog: The meat freezes from the outside, he explained, leaving the warm innards to spoil.

In sixth grade, a teacher bragged to the class about Spikes’ study habits and the country boy gained the confidence that has steered him since. “My teachers took interest in me; it shows what a difference nurturing and attention make in one’s life,” he said.

He said his older brothers and sisters “didn’t have the same opportunities.” His sisters mostly worked as domestics, his brothers did public works jobs.

His path was to be different. Once, Spikes’ father grabbed his son’s palms and told friends: “Jesse’s hands will never look like mine. He’ll use his head. Not his hands.”

At 16, he got a boost from A Better Chance, a nonprofit program that plucked students mostly from impoverished backgrounds and placed them in intensive learning situations. Spikes left Georgia to attend Hanover High in New Hampshire.

Oxford, Harvard

At first, the ABC students were intimidated by their high-achieving classmates. “But you buckled down and did what you had to do,” he said.

Beverly Love, a student from Birmingham, bunked with Spikes and remembers him being very homesick. “I told him I wasn’t; I didn’t want him to think I was,” recalled Love, now an obstetrician-gynecologist in Tennessee.

“It changed our lives; we got used to putting forth maximum effort,” he said. “Once you adjust to this kind of life-changing activity when you are young, nothing else stresses you out. You’ve been through the fire.”

Spikes learned diligence and discipline and to have goals. “Not only were you expected to go to college, you were expected to go to a good college,” he said.

He graduated from Dartmouth College; became a Rhodes Scholar, studying politics and philosophy at Oxford University; and earned a Harvard law degree.

He practiced law in Atlanta and in 1981 moved to the Middle East for nearly five years as an adviser to a Bahrain bank. The job recommendation came from Andrew Young, the former ambassador and future Atlanta mayor, who later introduced Spikes to heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield. Spikes became the boxer’s attorney and confidant.

Spikes remains friends with Young, although the civil rights legend recently endorsed Kasim Reed for mayor. Spikes said Young told him he was previously committed.

Waiting too long?

Love said Spikes, who is godfather to two of his children (Spikes has none) knew a campaign would be tough. Love, who ran twice — unsuccessfully — for an Alabama state Senate seat, warned Spikes to grow a thick skin and start learning again, because “you make a lot of errors.”

One error Spikes can’t make is to wait too long, said Matt Towery, whose polling firm, InsiderAdvantage, gave him the 2 percent mark. Towery said the polls are based on name recognition and Spikes needs to get some.

“His only shot is to go on TV [with an advertising blitz] before the others do,” said Towery. “It’s a gamble, but it’s his only shot. In three weeks he could be a household name. But he has to pull the trigger pretty soon. He has to use his money.

“He has a very compelling story,” said Towery. “Crazier things have happened.”