Just when you think things can’t get oilier when it comes to DeKalb County politics, enter the campaign of Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton, who faces a runoff in July against opponent Steve Bradshaw.

The commissioner has defended herself in the past from ethics charges and constant bombardment on a host of issues. Now Sutton has chosen to paint her opponent, who is African-American, as is she, as a pawn of the northside Republicans. You know, white folks.

But Sutton is moving the meter to a new low in a passive-aggressive racial dig at her opponent, who has a white wife.

Sutton didn’t come out and say it. Instead, her campaign put a photo of Bradshaw and his longtime spouse on a flier that tears into him. The strategy of the now-desperate Sutton (Bradshaw outpolled her last week) is to hope enough of the mostly black district doesn’t go for interracial marriages.

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Fulton DA Fani Willis (center) with Nathan J. Wade (right), the special prosecutor she hired to manage the Trump case and had a romantic relationship with, at a news conference announcing charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023. Georgia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, upheld an appeals court's decision to disqualify Willis from the election interference case against Trump and his allies. (Kenny Holston/New York Times)

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