Wednesday, November 18, 2009
News Where's Mary, indeed — Norwood is strangely out of sight
Posted by Scott Henry @ScottTheHenry on Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 1:59 AM
Speaking only for myself, the events of the past two weeks — at least those relating to the mayoral runoff — have certainly confounded expectations.
In the fortnight leading up to the Nov. 3 general election, Kasim Reed's campaign pulled something of a rope-a-dope, implying that his opponents weren't true Democrats. Both Mary Norwood and Lisa Borders took the bait, spending time and energy trying to establish their own Democratic credentials — an effort that likely lost them both some votes.
It was a masterfully divisive maneuver on Reed's part, but I've talked to some voters who were disgusted by it for that very reason, folks who didn't like seeing a wedge driven between political parties in a non-partisan race.
I assumed the runoff campaigning would get dirtier still. How could it not, given that Norwood seemed to have a lock on white Northside votes? It appeared the only way Reed could hope to win was by undermining Norwood's curious popularity among black voters — and the only way to do that was to make race an issue in the race.
But I was mistaken. That's not what has happened — at least, not yet. In fact, it's been quite the reverse.
Since Nov. 3, Reed has waged a positive campaign, rolling out one high-profile endorsement after another — Borders, ex-Gov. Roy Barnes, a bunch of preachers, the police union, etc. — and sticking with his upbeat "I love Atlanta" TV commercial.
Norwood, on the other hand, has all but vanished. I understand she's going door-to-door in Southside neighborhoods, but she hasn't generated much press in the past week. When reporters did show up to a press conference at her campaign office, they found Norwood wasn't there.
And it's Norwood who's seemingly gone negative. Last week, her campaign sent out notice that WSB had done a piece alleging Reed hadn't paid some property taxes. The next day, the AJC's Jim Galloway did a long blog post explaining that his publication hadn't overlooked Reed's taxes. In fact, he explained, investigative reporter Cam McWhirter had spent quite a while looking through Reed's and Borders' taxes and had determined that the issues WSB raised didn't amount to anything.
Even so, the Norwood folks continued to shop the tax story around to various reporters, or so I've been told by a friend at the AJC who got one such call.
Today, I got a chance to ask Norwood herself if she thought Reed was getting a free pass on the tax matter.
"We'll see what gets traction and what doesn't over the next two weeks," she said, sounding unusually like a politician. "But I don't think it's good for a public official to show disregard for paying taxes over and over again."
The latest negative tidbit to surface is a weird piece of innuendo proffered by the Atlanta Progressive News, which is something of a far-left blog masquerading as a media outlet. Acting as an apparent proxy for the Norwood campaign, APN has cluttered e-mail inboxes with a piece insinuating that Reed, in his capacity as an attorney, once battled the NAACP on behalf of Cracker Barrel restaurants.
The "article," like much of APN's output — including several attack pieces previously written about Lisa Borders — falls so far short of basic journalistic standards that it scarcely bears notice. Still, another local blogger who also works as an attorney was so offended by the lousy legal analysis she found in the APN piece that she felt compelled to post a point-by-point rebuttal.
Look, I don't need reminding that CL endorsed Kasim Reed for mayor, but we're still watching the race as objectively as possible. If his campaign were going down the tubes, we'd tell you straight.
But it instead appears that Norwood is out of ammunition. She held a press conference today in Summerhill where she was "endorsed" by longtime resident Mattie Jackson, who explained that she was backing Norwood whether or not the Councilwoman is a Republican. Not exactly on message.
There were about 20 Norwood supporters present, including campaign "consultant," former state Rep. "Able" Mable Thomas. If you compare that gathering with Reed's photo-op with Barnes at the Capitol last week, it's obvious which campaign has the momentum.
(Photo by John Sugg)
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
Really? Really??? Tell me where I'm wrong: - The final poll released before election day showed Norwood at 46%. - She finished election day at 46% - The latest poll shows her at 46% - Norwood has maintained her 46% AFTER: - Reed involved the GA democratic party and attacked her. - Endorsement by Lisa Borders - Endorsement by Maynard Jackson's daughter - Endorsement by Andy Young - Endorsement by Shirley Franklin - Endorsement by IBPO - Endorsement by Black clergy So, dude, you're basically exactly incorrect. Reed has thrown everything...EVERYTHING at Norwood and he hasn't chipped into her support AT ALL. Reed is the one who's out of ammunition.
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Last I looked, 46% wasn't enough to win this election, samiam. Kasim beats her in the latest poll, for what that's worth. Mary's being kept out of sight by her handlers so she can't offer more evidence that she's an idiot, which would discourage Northsiders from coming back out to vote for her again. I say the media, what's left of it, should track her down and ask her substantive questions. Kasim should challenge her to a debate where we can see the two candidates side by side without the silly distractions of Jesse and Kyle.
"whether of not she is a Republican" Really?....REALLY?? omg, worst press conference ever.
SAMiAM - "So, dude, you’re basically exactly incorrect. Reed has thrown everything…EVERYTHING at Norwood and he hasn’t chipped into her support AT ALL." To go from 35% to 49%, may prove, yes, he didn't chip into her support, but the basic math not only proves he has a higher percentage, but also support from everyone he needs to get things done with. It's an illusion that an outsider democrat will be able to get the support of an antagonistic state house and senate, or be able to convince us that Atlanta can get by without making very hard choices that the public will not like. Sounds like Mary's comfortable with not accepting change and sticking to a formula. We need someone that's going to be dynamic and reach out for support and advice from others. Mary, to this point, doesn't know anything more than her narrow vision provides.
3% is well inside the margin of error. Basically Reed has picked up Border's supporters. They are (undecideds left out) at 50-50. Now - does anyone want to dispute the historical voting patterns of run-off elections?
SAMiAM - Even granting you a 3% margin of error, that still means that Reed went up 11%, and Norwood hasn't kept any sense of momentum. It's even more disappointing that she's shunning the press that she now needs to tell her story to more people.
Brandon - What you're not understanding is that in order to defeat Norwood, they have to take votes away from her. Reed will not be able to turn out a significant amount of south side/black support (of which he has the majority). Obama couldn't do it. Martin couldn't do it. Reed sure as hell can't do it. Norwood's base will turn out. Big time. It matters not about him gaining % - he needs to make Norwood lose a significant % - and he hasn't been able to do that with the entire 30 year political and business machine backing him. He's toast.
Also, keep in mind that the latest poll assume that 60% of the voters on run off election day will be black and 40% will be white. It was 50/50 on Nov 3rd. If the 50/50 metric is applied to that same poll - Norwood has a 5% lead.
The poll also says almost 60% of the voters will be under 50, which is not likely either. Reed is winning the over 50 crowd by almost 10 points. So adjusting the poll just by race would also be incorrect. The race is probably a dead heat at this point
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