Given the enormous attention that was paid by the chattering classes of Washington to gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey last month, you’d think any significant election would be deeply analyzed for possible national political implications. But earlier this week, one of America’s major cities, Atlanta, had a mayoral election that largely passed notice at all outside Georgia.
As it happens, state senator Kasim Reed, a Democrat, narrowly defeated city councilwoman Mary Norwood, an independent, in a runoff called when Norwood fell a bit short of a majority in the general election on November 3. (note: Norwood has demanded a recount, but virtually no one outside her campaign believes it will reverse the outcome).
Had a thousand votes changed hands, and Norwood prevailed, I suspect we’d be hearing a lot from national Republicans about the significance of this election. After all, Reed was endorsed by the Georgia Democratic Party, whose 2010 gubernatorial front-runner, former Gov. Roy Barnes, cut ads for his fellow-Democrat. Moreover, Norwood’s candidacy was fueled initially by her opposition to a local property tax hike, which could have made her a player in the Right’s national tax revolt narrative. On a more sinister level, some conservatives might have played with a racial angle: Norwood was the first viable white candidate for mayor in Atlanta since 1981, while Reed is the protégé of outgoing African-American mayor Shirley Franklin, herself the protégé of the first two black mayors of the city, Andrew Young and the late Maynard Jackson.
The vote did in fact break largely (though not strictly) on racial lines, though in part that’s because the ideological differences between the candidate actually diminished during the runoff campaign. Norwood displeased some early Republican backers by claiming to have voted for every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992, and also sought to outflank Reed among Atlanta’s sizable GLBT population by announcing her support for gay marriage.
We’ll never know for sure what sort of spin might have been applied to the results on Fox News had the result been different. But there’s another mayoral runoff on tap December 12 in another southern sun belt center, Houston, with a similar racial angle, but with different ideological dynamics. As in Atlanta, a white female candidate, city controller Annise Parker, ran first in the general election, and an African-American man, former city attorney Gene Locke, came from back of the pack to finish second. Both candidates are considered progressive Democrats. But the crucial difference from Atlanta is that Parker is an open lesbian, and Locke is flirting with an alliance with hard-line conservatives who warn that Parker’s election (along with that of two openly gay city council candidates) would represent a “gay takeover” of the city. We’ll see how that one turns out, and whether any national dogs bark.
