Fresh Loaf

Welcome to CL’s annual catalog of impotence: the 11 Least Influential. You’ll meet folks who tried to achieve an ambitious goal, but fell short; people who’ve devoted themselves to a personal mission in near-total obscurity; and ordinary losers who can’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Every day until the full issue hits the streets on Nov. 11, we’ll bring you a new story of failure — some noble and heroic, others abject and pathetic.

We begin with one of the latter. Enjoy.

Subject: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Failing: Can’t nut up enough to endorse candidates

One of the perks of being the sole daily newspaper for a major metropolitan city is that you can tell folks what to do. Where to eat. What movies to see. What books to read. And who to vote for. That goes double for a paper with a storied history of taking strong editorial stands on the issues of the day, such as Ralph McGill’s impassioned columns blasting segregation.

But what if, in giving an opinion — even a modulated, rational, well-argued one — you happen to say something some people don’t wish to hear. Horrors! We can’t have that. What if readers stopped subscribing to the paper? Oh, yeah, they’re already doing that… Perhaps it’s best to remove any opinion, insight, conclusions or point of view from the paper altogether.

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Some random observations:

• Write-in candidate Dr. Tiffany Brown got in the neighborhood of 60 votes city-wide. That’s about one vote for each time the line “Vote for Tiffany Brown” was used in her catchy campaign rap song.
• At the end of September, mayoral front-runner Mary Norwood had a huge campaign warchest. But over the past month, she burned through more than $600,000, spending more than Kasim Reed ($274,000) and Lisa Borders ($300,000) put together. As of Oct. 25, Norwood and Reed each had about $166,000 in cash on hand (although Reed had loaned his campaign about $100,000 of that amount).
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Borders reacts to the shocker

Probably the biggest surprise of Tuesday’s elections was Lisa Borders’ poor showing. Granted, various polls had showed her support waning and Kasim Reed’s numbers growing. But no one I talked to had expected Borders to net only 14 percent in what was widely perceived as a three-way race. I mean, City Hall shouter Dave Walker got nearly 10 percent in the Council president’s race and he didn’t raise a dime!

So how did the former runoff hopeful become an also-ran? A few thoughts:

1. She didn’t define herself — Easy for us to say, but it’s true. Mary Norwood positioned herself as the throw-the-bums-out, anti-City Hall candidate, a spokesperson for everyone sick of business as usual. Reed cast himself as the determined outsider, criticizing those on whose watch the city had faltered and promising to restore hope to inner-city neighborhoods. Quick — what did Borders claim to represent?

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I hate to pile on the AJC with regard to their election coverage, because they’ve already taken plenty of lumps for cravenly weaseling out of endorsing candidates in the Atlanta city elections.

But, sweet Jesus, did they screw things up! As my colleague Thomas noted in an earlier post, someone over on Marietta Street just plumb forgot to add in the results from precincts in DeKalb County. (Granted, DeKalb, which is usually very facile with online data, has made it excruciatingly difficult to find said results.)

The snafu is most noticeable in the District 6 Council race, where the AJC online graphic suggests that Tad Christian made the runoff, rather than Liz Coyle:

While the DeKalb numbers didn’t alter who won or who survived in any other Council districts, they did change the percentages in all the city-wide races.

Without further ado, here’s a link to the corrected numbers (PDF).

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Let’s say that, after voting, you want to go out tomorrow evening to support your favorite candidate for mayor — and score some free food. Here’s where you’ll find ‘em on election night:

• Lisa Borders — Her party’s in the new W Hotel Downtown at 45 Ivan Allen Blvd. She’s booked a 4th floor ballroom.
• Kyle Keyser — Yes, the longshot activist is throwing a party, too. It’s at Noni’s restaurant at 357 Edgewood Ave.
  
• Mary Norwood — Breaking with the tradition of using a hotel or event facility, Norwood is holding her party at the Varsity. Slaw dogs for everybody!
• Kasim Reed — He’ll be somewhere in the Hyatt Regency downtown. Check with the concierge for directions.

And, let’s not forget the candidates for council president:

• Ceasar Mitchell — He’ll be raising the roof at Park Tavern at the corner of 10th and Monroe.
• Clair Muller — Not too surprisingly, Clair isn’t a big party gal. We’re told she’ll be hanging out at home tomorrow night.

Be sure to vote, folks!

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Mable got paid, beeyatch!

Finally I’ve got an answer to my earlier question of what Mary Norwood had to spend to earn an endorsement from “Able” Mable Thomas.

Thanks to the most recent financial disclosures, filed Friday evening, we now know that the councilwoman’s mayoral campaign paid the mercenary rabble-rouser $1,500 for “consulting services.” Here’s the PDF.

Is it too cynical to wonder if Thomas’ services consisted of consulting with Norwood on what it would cost to buy her endorsement?

Frankly, unless there was some kind of “in-kind” compensation promised, “Able” Mable comes cheaper than I thought.

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OMG! This changes everything!

Write-in candidate for mayor Tiffany Brown — that’s Dr. Brown to you — has dropped her new campaign song and it’s fresh, dawgs!

“Vote for Tiffany Brown“

Rumor is that Mary Norwood has worked up an emergency breakdance routine to counter Brown’s expected surge in the polls.

Fo’ shizzle my nizzle.

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Remember yesterday when I was praising a TV ad by Kasim Reed for its positive, upbeat, love-everybody tone?

Well, that was then. Today Reed has a new ad that smears Norwood as a Republican:

So much for civility. Now that polls indicate that Reed has pulled comfortably ahead of Borders, he’s changed tack and is trying to pull support away from Norwood in order to prevent her from winning on Nov. 3 without a runoff.

Will it work? Damned if we know, but we’ll be watching carefully to find out…

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OK, this is the fourth significant print media article I’ve seen on the subject of the impact of race in determining the city’s next mayor. It was written by Errin Haines, a young African American reporter with the Atlanta bureau of the Associated Press.

Of course, the story mentions the controversial August memo by two Clark-Atlanta professors that advocated the election of a black mayor:

The incident soured Rev. Joseph Lowery, a revered civil rights leader whose support is coveted, on endorsing either Reed or Borders. He has instead focused on increasing voter turnout.

”I don’t think there’s anything wrong with discussing black candidates for mayor,” Lowery said. ”We’d be silly not to discuss the issue. It’s a reality. I think the most qualified candidates in this race are black.”

It’s a little interesting that the AP story quotes Lowery without mentioning that he’s a member of the Black Leadership Council, the mysterious group that commissioned the memo.

Anyway, for your edification, the earlier articles on race were done by the AJC, the NYT and, of course, lil’ old CL.

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For months now, Councilwoman Mary Norwood has insisted, promised, all but swore on the baby Jesus that if she’s elected mayor, Atlanta’s next police chief would be hired from within the ranks.

Despite her denials, many observers figured she must already have someone in mind. Otherwise, it wouldn’t seem to make much sense to narrow your options like that. Sure, Pennington didn’t work out so well, but it’s considered a best practice for cities of our size to conduct a national search for such important positions.

Still, Norwood repeatedly defended her decision at one forum after another, explaining that she wanted a chief who was already familiar with the local geography. As she told the AJC: “It takes them a long time for them to figure out where Adamsville is, where Moores Mills is and Browns Mill is.” (Psst — that’s why Al Gore invented GPS.)

Well, WABE radio reports that, just yesterday, Norwood flip-flopped and signed a pledge sponsored by a local human-rights organization stating that she’d undertake a national search for the next top cop.

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Buck Man, we don't need your vote

In the final days before next Tuesday’s mayoral election, it seems both Lisa Borders and Kasim Reed have ceded Buckhead to Mary Norwood and are focusing their remaining efforts on Southside Atlanta.

What makes us say this? Consider the evidence:

Last night, both were no-shows at a candidate forum hosted by the Pine Hills Neighborhood Association, a group that includes residents who live south of Lenox Square between Lenox and Roxboro roads.

Also, both have gotten into a war of words over who makes the better choice for Democratic voters, an argument that is unlikely to resonate with a good percentage of Northsiders.

Borders is now taking every opportunity to say she’s a Democrat, from her latest TV ad to ongoing phone solicitations in which callers ask the called to “Vote for Lisa Borders, Democrat.” And those calls are going out to Buckhead.

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These are a couple days old, but I’m just catching up with them. Before I saw the Lisa Borders ad, I heard it described as a dramatization featuring a “group of women talking together in a kitchen whom you’d never see talking together in a kitchen”:

After seeing the ad, I’d have to agree it’s fairly contrived, in the same way that most political ads using actors tend to be. Of more interest is what they’re saying. After the women express their concerns about crime, they offer these choice bullet points:

• “It’s time for these things to change.”
• “We need new leadership.”
• “What we need is a Democrat.”

OK, first the obvious: This ad is clearly aimed at female voters and, judging from the cast, specifically African American women. I assume it’s mainly intended to siphon women away from Kasim Reed. Take note of the line, “My girlfriend, she was out walking her dog, and someone came up behind her.”

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Can’t decide who you’ll vote for in the mayoral election next Tuesday because you’re just not fired up about any of the candidates?

May we suggest you try process of elimination? Sometimes choosing a candidate to support is best approached by determining who wouldn’t get your vote even in the event of ice-skating on the River Styx.

Fortunately, there are plenty of people with Internet access who are only too willing to help eliminate some candidate options through the careful application of innuendo, character assassination and good old-fashioned trash-talking.

As a rule of thumb, you haven’t earned your stripes as a candidate yet unless you’re the target of an anonymous opposition website. So, without further ado, here are selected hater sites:

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What's in it for Mable?

Just yesterday, one of our commenters predicted — jokingly, or so I thought — that former state Rep. “Able” Mable Thomas would endorse Councilwoman Mary Norwood for mayor.

Well, it’s happening. I just got an e-mail alert from the Norwood campaign about an endorsement photo-op scheduled for Friday.

How weird is this? Anyone who’s been around Atlanta any length of time knows “Able” Mable — herself a former Council member who most recently ran against U.S. Rep. John Lewis — to be a career politician and lip-service populist who never gives away what she can sell.

So, the question is, what did Norwood offer her in return? Just askin’.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Tom Houck, state Rep. Ralph Long, and Aaron Turpeau discuss race at Uptown Lounge

Over the past few months, the leading candidates for Atlanta mayor have dutifully taken part in dozens of public forums across the city, giving the impression that no interest group is too obscure or any issue too unimportant to be addressed.

Last week, however, a politically oriented event was held downtown without a single office-seeker in sight. But this was hardly surprising. Most candidates would prefer being waterboarded than to go on the record discussing the evening’s chosen subject: race.

It didn’t help that one of the participants in last Wednesday’s panel discussion at Uptown Lounge was Aaron Turpeau, the longtime political operative associated with a controversial memo calling for coordination among black leaders to elect a black mayor.

When the memo surfaced in August, City Council President Lisa Borders quickly denounced it. State Sen. Kasim Reed labeled it “racist.” Even Mayor Shirley Franklin weighed in, dismissing it as “bigoted.”

But like it or not, where the mayor’s race is concerned, race remains the mastodon in the room. Although few have discussed it openly, it’s quite possible that no single factor will have as much impact in determining Atlanta’s next mayor — although not necessarily in ways that seem obvious.

Continue reading “Race looms large in Atlanta’s upcoming mayoral election”

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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.

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Councilman Lamar Willis has achieved national recognition — as an example of how not to run a charitable foundation.

The current issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy cites Willis’ many, many legal and tax woes in a short piece that warns philanthropic organizations of the perils of not following the rules.

This month, for instance, a foundation operated by H. Lamar Willis, an Atlanta city-council member, was fined $25,000 by Georgia regulators because it was not registered in that state, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

This is one instance where it’s probably better not to have one’s efforts acknowledged.

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This is the pits. We’ve gotten word that Peach Buzz columnist Rich Eldredge quit the AJC last Friday after being told he was being reassigned. Here’s the internal memo that went out to the newsroom — somewhat prematurely, it would now seem:

Jennifer Brett joins the Opinion/Insight group as Peach Buzz columnist and blogger. Jennifer will report on the comings and goings of Atlanta’s celebs and VIPs. Jennifer will start Monday.

Rich Eldredge joins the Breaking News group, bringing a wealth of reporting experience and deep local connections. Rich will start Monday.

Oops, maybe not.

This is bad news for all concerned. I’ve argued before that a society/celebrity column has a place in a major daily newspaper and that Eldredge, who took over the gig full-time in 1996, was “easily the best Buzz-er the paper has had in the last 20 years.”

I can attest from experience that being bounced from a comfortable beat can be a jarring, horrendous experience for a journalist. On the other hand, it often goes with the territory. It’s a shame that the AJC management and Eldredge couldn’t work out a mutually agreeable solution. Instead, Peach Buzz loses his wry voice and the paper loses his “reporting experience and deep local connections.”

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Borders with sinister City Hall puppet-master Tom Bell!

Folks, there are scarcely two weeks left before the Nov. 3 city elections. Two damn weeks! It would seem the mayoral candidates are mindful of this because they’ve shifted into attack mode.

Last Friday, City Council President Lisa Borders challenged opponent Kasim Reed to pledge to “end nepotism” in City Hall, while pointing out that his brother works as a contract compliance officer for the city.

Now, the Borders folks told me about this months ago, hinting at some vague conflict of interest. But it isn’t nepotism because, while  candidate Reed is close to Mayor Franklin, he’s never worked for the city. And if he used his influence to help his brother get the job, that’s not illegal or even, I would argue, necessarily unethical.

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Last week, the AJC announced publicly what many observers had suspected for weeks: that it would not make an endorsement in the Atlanta mayoral race  — or any race, for that matter.

In a now-classic example of craven, CYA weaseling, the paper’s “editorial board” explained:

We have heard from readers — and we agree — that you don’t need us to tell you how to vote.

(If you follow this position to its illogical conclusion, it suggests that editor Julia Wallace thinks predecessor Ralph McGill was an insufferable bossypants.)

The board also promised it “will provide readers with clear, concise information about candidates’ positions and records,” to appear, in edited form, in the Oct. 25 issue of the paper.

Here’s how they’re doing it: Last week, the editorial board — which, you’ll recall, is now composed mostly of newspaper execs, rather than reporters or editorial writers — invited the leading mayoral candidates to meet with the board individually next week. But it was made clear that no endorsements would be given.

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OK, I like pirates as much as the next guy. Who among us hasn’t been tempted to silence some blowhard by snarling, “Avast ye, scurvy dog!”

But a pirate museum in downtown Atlanta? That makes about as much sense as us getting a cowboy heritage center or a monument to Arctic exploration.

Unless, of course, your goal is make a quick buck by turning Centennial Park into a theme park with cheesy attractions geared toward unrelated cultural fads. Hmm, now that’s an idea. What about opening the Buffalo Wing Museum? Or the Center for Cell Phone App Research? Or a meercat habitat? (Oops, I forgot Zoo Atlanta recently did that already.)

UPDATE: I was just reminded by a doctor of cultural anthropology I know that pirates were the major force behind the North African slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. Maybe the museum could offer a two-for-one admission deal with the planned Center for Civil and Human Rights.

(Image stolen from Snorg Tees)

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Vote early, vote often!

As you may have noticed, we at CL offered our City Hall endorsements this week — but only for four races: mayor, Council prez and two of the three at-large seats. Frankly, the reasons for being so selective were more practical than anything else. I mean, have you seen how many people are running for some of these seats? It wasn’t feasible to bring in 20 or 30 candidates for individual interviews. As it was, we ended up meeting face-to-face with a dozen candidates.

Does this mean we’re blowing off the rest of the Council races? We’re glad you asked, because the answer is no! In each of the contested district races, we asked the candidates to answer a questionnaire that we’d then post online to help educate voters. (Links to candidate responses are below the jump.)

You may recall that the Metro Atlanta Chamber (dba Committee for a Better Atlanta) does the same thing; we’d encourage you to read both sets of questionnaires — and visit the candidates’ websites, and watch forums, and attend meet-and-greets, etc. — in order to get a more complete idea of the choices facing you in the Nov. 3 election.

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Man, Jimmy Carter must be pissed!

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It hasn’t been a good couple of weeks for Atlanta Councilman H. Lamar Willis, who stands for reelection in a little more than three weeks. First, the AJC reports that he owes nearly $44,000 in back taxes. Then, Secretary of State Karen Handel trumpets the fact that Willis just got socked with a $25,000 court fine due to his squirrely scholarship foundation.

The most recent AJC story mentions, for good measure, that the state filed yet another lien against Willis in late August to recover about $1,500 in unpaid sales taxes relating to a car he bought four years ago.

So today Willis released a statement trying to put his many financial missteps into, um, context. Here’s a taste:

The [$25,000] fine is related to a failure to properly register as a charity as required by Georgia law. The Court specifically found that there was insufficient evidence that the Foundation had used any artifice or scheme to defraud contributors. The Court also found there was insufficient evidence that the moneys’ [sic] raised were misappropriated. In fact, not a single contributor was called as a witness by the Secretary of State in support of the allegations put forth in her complaint. I did not use any contributions for my personal benefit.

Certainly, it should come as a big relief that “there was insufficient evidence that the monies raised were misappropriated.” Doesn’t that make you breathe a little easier?

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What does Atlanta’s much-maligned downtown central library — a building that’s been described as a giant cinderblock with windows — have in common with the ruins of Machu Picchu, a 17th-century Dutch fort in Sri Lanka and a group of pre-historic burial stones in a Jordanian valley?

Well, they are all among the dozens of structures, historic sites and geological formations included on the World Monuments Fund’s 2010 Watch List of the planet’s most endangered places.

(I have to admit I wasn’t familiar with the WMF, which bills itself as the “leading private organization dedicated to saving the world’s most treasured places.” Glad they made the distinction of being private, because I’m quite familiar with UNESCO, the kick-ass, Paris-based UN offshoot that fulfills that role in a public capacity.)

As you may recall, the central library building was one of the last designs by world-famous architect Marcel Breuer, who also designed the similar Whitney Museum in Manhattan. Last fall, Fulton voters approved a $275 million bond referendum that included funds dedicated to relocating the central library to another site. The Breuer building would be sold, presumably to a private developer who could decide to renovate it or tear it down.
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