DeKalb CEO: Ellis’ race to lose, but you never know…
August 4, 2008 at 12:19 pm by Scott Henry in News“Forget it, Jake. It’s South DeKalb.”
With apologies to Chinatown, that’s what DeKalb voting patterns make me think of. Who imagined, back in 2004, that Cynthia McKinney would win back her Congressional seat without a runoff against such heavy hitters as Lianne Levitan and Cathy Woolard? Ditto for embattled CEO Vernon Jones, who easily won re-election that same year against six challengers, including a sitting commissioner, also without a runoff.
South DeKalb politics is like a sealed box; you can speculate all you like about what’s inside, but you never really know until you take the lid off on election day. Invoking a comparison from quantum physics, state Rep. Stan Watson’s CEO campaign is like Schrodinger’s cat: theoretically speaking, both alive and dead at the same time – at least until the ballots are counted tomorrow night.
Behind both in the polls and in cash, Watson seems to be employing the same campaign strategy that elevated McKinney four years ago: Turn out the black vote. This is not an inherently contemptible approach. He’s a south DeKalb politician; that’s his constituency. Any pol will agree that you gotta go after your base.
But it doesn’t speak well to Watson’s claim to be able to bridge the racial divide between the north and south ends of the county that he has criticized the front-runner, Commissioner Burrell Ellis, for providing the swing vote to boost a white commissioner, Kathie Gannon, to the post of presiding chair over a black commissioner, Larry Johnson.
South DeKalb voters received this pro-Watson flier that – surprise! – name-drops Barrack Obama and bluntly asks, “Now, whose side is Burrell Ellis really on?” The mailer came from the anonymous “Concerned DeKalb Citizens,” but no matter – Watson has made an issue in public forums of Ellis’ cooperation with the three white Northside commissioners, so he can’t exactly distance himself from the ideas expressed.
At the same time, Watson has tried to win over Northside voters with fliers touting his support from such white House members as Stephanie Stuckey-Benfield and Michelle Henson – both DeKalb Democrats – and even a Republican, Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine.
All this aside, the race still seems Ellis’ to lose. He came within four points of winning the primary without a runoff and since then his campaign seems only to have gained steam. As the AJC’s number-crunching has shown, Watson led the voting in South DeKalb – but not by much – and was not a contender in North DeKalb. And, although we don’t put much stock in endorsements, it was notable that Ann Kimbrough, the third-place finisher and Vernon proxy, chose to stay mum rather than throw her support behind Watson.
The CEO’s race could come down to who’s better oganized on election day – and so far Ellis’ organization has been flawless. For once, a South DeKalb election could run according to predictions.
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