Vernon Jones has returned to the campaign trail in DeKalb County, and this time he’s wearing a cowboy hat.
Jones, the first African-American to be elected CEO of DeKalb, is running for county sheriff. But his track record since then is pretty grim — lost the U.S. Senate race in 2008, lost the U.S. House race in 2010, considered but backed away from a state legislative race in 2012.
His enmity for the media, particularly for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is intense, and he would argue that the AJC’s enmity for him is equally intense. As a consequence, Jones isn’t talking to the AJC about his candidacy, preferring to run his campaign on the Internet and by meeting voters close up, out of the public spotlight.
“He said he’s not doing it the conventional way,” said Maynard Eaton, the longtime Atlanta newsman and political strategist. “He said he’s been beat up, that his past will keep coming up.”
Subscribers may read the full story by staff writer Bill Torpy at myajc.com and in Sunday's print AJC. Also online: a photo gallery of Jones through the years, and an extraordinary email thread involving Jones and members of the AJC staff a year ago.
