NYT offers another look at race in mayor’s race
October 21, 2009 at 5:02 pm by Scott Henry in News
Apparently, great publications think alike.
In an interesting coincidence, both CL and the NYT ran articles today about how the issue of race is affecting the Atlanta mayor’s race — and we both ended up quoting the same Emory poli sci prof!
Not so coincidental is the fact that we both used that professor’s take on Mary Norwood’s campaign strategy. Here’s the segment from the Times story:
Ms. Norwood has set the tone by relentlessly attacking the Franklin administration’s record on crime and city finances, forcing the other candidates to distance themselves from the mayor.
“When you attack City Hall, you’re also implicitly attacking, to a degree, black politics,” said Michael Leo Owens, a political science professor at Emory University. “And this is a message that in some ways plays well with the white electorate.”
For weeks now, I’d been trying to figure out why Norwood seems to be running against City Hall rather than her opponents. Owens’ analysis, though arguably cynical, makes a great deal of sense.
Here’s the link to my story. I regret I didn’t have space to use Owens’ observations about Norwood’s “98 Buick” commercial. With voiceover narration by an older African American lady, it’s clearly aimed at the elderly black vote in a way that neither Lisa Borders nor Kasim Reed could get away with, he says.
Also, check out the five-minute-long video of Norwood hanging out at the Beautiful Restaurant on Cascade Road. It’s like something you’d see on the parody site, “Black People Love Us.”
October 21st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Mary “Sarah Palin” Norwood. What a contemptible worm! She’s paying for the Black vote with soul food at a hallowed eatery, and now she’s got an endorsement coming out that she slapped down a pretty penny for out of that bedazzled war chest o’ hers.
If Mary was smart (which she’s not), she’d put more energy into being a full-time Councilwoman instead of a half-assed mayoral candidate.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Between this story and the Lisa Borders eminent domain story, CL’s endorsement of Kasim Reed is seeming better every day.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Brian, how much is Reed paying you to comment on these blogs? Do you have to check in with Daddy Reed to make sure your comments are to his liking! LOL! I bet he’s in his campaign hovel licking his chops right about now with the damage his little press conference is doing. Guess he’s sharpened up those thug-style tactics.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Betsy, unfortunately, I’m not getting paid a thing, nor have I ever met Mr. Reed. If he’d like to pay me though I sure could use the money – I’ve got plumbing work that needs to be done! Hopefully I can get that done before Lisa Borders takes my house – ha!
October 21st, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Hurry and get those boards off the window then, Brian! The eyesores are the first to go.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Also, doesn’t NYC have their OWN mayor’s race to worry about? Get outta our politics, Yanks.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Just as soon as I kick out the dude renting my bathroom for his Meth business, the boards come down. OK, I won’t hijack the blog with this anymore. I have to go home and pray that Mary Norwood makes bars close even earlier than she already has when she becomes Mayor.
October 21st, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Mary is far from bright:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS0ekhf6PHM
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:52 am
WSJ also wrote about it a while back. Just sayin’.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:00 am
Mary Norwood rents Black people to give her street cred. After, god knows, how many articles and debates, she can’t even get MLK’s “content of their character” quote correct and out of the same dumb mouth, says that Atlanta “does not have a race problem.”
I’ll judge her by her content alright. Her content is 10lbs of stupid in a 5lb bag. Mary Norwood is the kind of person that asks to touch your hair. She might even ask you how often you wash. To be nice she’ll buy you a Kwanzaa card at Christmas. I’m not suggesting that she doesn’t care about Black people but my G-d, is she ignorant of the Black condition, particularly in Atlanta.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:04 am
I’d look for Mary’s latest purchase to be Able Mable Thomas then who knows. I hear she like to shop around at Soul Food restaurants.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:10 am
Just think of the electorate she could get from buying out Busy Bee Cafe!
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
Great photo! Is the message that Mary Norwood will drive around in circles as mayor? Drive us crazy? Drive us to drink? That all Mary will do as mayor is drive around to community meetings?
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:58 am
Obama’s campaign focused on Bush, who ran the country into the ground. Norwood is focusing on Shirley, who ran the COA into the ground… and she continues by allowing Pennington to “retire” instead of firing him for his obvious incompetence. (I wonder how much that pension’s going to cost us?)
College students and other innocents are being shot, neighborhoods have been under siege, and ATL’s youth are substituting gangs for family and community. I look at Jonathan Redding, the accused shooter in the Standard murder, and see how gangs have abducted ATL’s youth. The kid is 17, is incarcerated in the Fulton County Jail, and has refused to say a word about his alleged accomplices. Gang code? In fear of his life? In fear of his family’s lives? All of the above? It’s an impossible situation that needs to be addressed. At least one candidate has an aggressive plan to reclaim these kids and it is a major priority, God bless him.
In the meantime, look at the state of the City, especially its children. If this is legacy of that great ATL mayor, Maynard Jackson, he must be spinning in his grave.