The Maynard Report: Atlanta’s Mayoral Election Night Views and Blues

By Maynard Eaton | The Maynard Report

Howard Franklin is a respected lobbyist, and political strategist, whose thoughtful insights I find to be telling and spot-on. ‘Andre Dickens will be the first mayor in a generation to win a mandate. A mandate! Our city’s last three mayors have won with 50% plus a fraction – barely.’

Franklin continues, confidently, ‘The city is ready for something else; something different. They’re going to expect a unifier, an operator, and somebody who is ready to get this city back on track. Andre is all of those things!'”

Visiting and reporting from both Election Night festivities, a week ago, and talking with their respective supporters reflected the mantra “a tale of two cities” that still exists.

It proved to be a slam dunk victory for Andre Dickens, the Atlanta Councilman who narrowly won a spot in the November 30th runoff against Council President Felicia Moore by less than 600 votes. Nevertheless, Dickens flipped the script to become Atlanta’s 61st Mayor in a landslide, winning 64% of the vote in a paltry turnout.

Clifford Harris Jr., better known as T.I., the popular recording artist, actor, activist, and politico, contends his friend’s blowout election victory cements “Atlanta as Black America’s capital city”, and cements a new “The Atlanta Way” mystique.

“The Atlanta Way! It’s been adjusted, however, there is still the Atlanta Way,” says T.I., who endorsed and campaigned for Mayor-elect Dickens. “I feel like this is a pivotal moment. It is a defining moment for the culture and the fabric for a way of life for the people of this city. There’s a certain energy, there is a certain intangible, but palpable feeling that you get when you land in Atlanta or drive in Atlanta. It’s just a feeling that anything is possible.”

That upbeat feeling reverberated throughout the festive Gathering Spot private club where Dickens’ Election night celebration was held, and not merely among the young.

Take Leticia and Gregory Leaks, for example. They are retirees who worship with Dickens as members of New Horizon Baptist Church where the mayor-elect also attends.

“Andre is change. Andre represents change and Atlanta needs that,” opines Leticia. “We need to move forward. Old politicking has passed. It’s a new age; it’s a new era; it’s a new generation here in Atlanta now and Andre speaks to that demographic.”

Dickens also speaks reassuringly to what was the mayoral campaign’s foremost issue. Jackie Patterson is an esteemed criminal defense attorney and former Atlanta cop known for his fashionable fedoras, who says his #1 concern in the city is crime.

“I believe Andre is a rising star,” says Patterson. I think he has come far enough to earn this mayor’s position. He is committed to adding 400 additional police officers, and even when I was a police officer in the ‘80’s we only had about 2,000 officers and that is where we are today. We need many, many more.

He adds with a smile, “It’s time for a brand-new generation. Andre Dickens falls into that new generation with a new vision.”

There were no smiles downtown at The W Hotel where Felicia Moore was conceding defeat and urging the respective campaigns to “bring this city together”. Her supporters, I talked to, were not buying it. A somber tone soaked the atmosphere. They were singing the blues a week ago, and perhaps still are. It was a tough and shocking political setback for them.

“I’m disappointed because I’ve never seen the Black bourgeoisie make a move like they made against Felicia after she finished as the top vote-getter with 41 percent. The old ‘clique’ all went the other way with their endorsements. Now, endorsements don’t mean as much as they did 20 years ago, but I have never seen a monolithic move to block the path of the #1 vote-getter. That has never happened in this city,” says Dr. Kenneth Augustus Walker, a political consultant and pastor. “They see her as a white candidate. They see her as an outsider. They represent the old Atlanta.”

William Perry is white, and is a Georgia Ethics Watchdog leader, who called this “the most important mayoral election” of his lifetime. “Atlanta is on the cusp of what I work on – ethics, transparency, non-corruption. This is a major choice. Andre is part of the go-along, get-along crowd and he’s taken a lot of money from developers, so that tells me it ain’t going to change.”

Dianne Adoma, a marketing consultant and Moore campaign staffer, laments City Hall’s “pay-to-play” political schemes continue and is “very disappointed that a lot of the women in politics” endorsed Dickens. “Tonight, we can clearly see that ‘Black Girl Magic’ doesn’t matter. I would like to have seen the women, such as former Mayor Shirley Franklin, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, and others, stay out of it if they could not support another Black woman. With Felicia, they all turned their backs on her!”

Bitterness and bewilderment remain.

Howard Franklin is a respected lobbyist, and political strategist, who’s thoughtful insights, I find to be telling and spot- on. “Andre Dickens will be the first mayor in a generation to win a mandate. A mandate! Our city’s last three mayors have won with 50% plus a fraction: barely.

Franklin continues, confidently, “The city is ready for something else; something different. They’re going to expect a unifier, an operator, and somebody who is ready to get this city back on track. Andre is all of those things!”

On a personal note from a newsman who has been a storyteller for each Atlanta mayoral election since the late Mayor Maynard Jackson’s second one in ’78, it was inspirational and heartening to talk Atlanta politics that night with former journalism colleagues I once competed with like Maria Saporta, Fox 5’s Morse Diggs, WSB’s Richard Elliott and Dave Huddleston, Fox 5’s Diedre Dukes and AJC’s Greg Bluestein , among others, who were there reporting at both campaigns about the election night results and reaction. Atlanta politics have always been my professional passion as a reporter for 43 years. It still is.

So, once again Atlanta: Let the healing begin!

Andre Dickens portrait by artist Craig Henderson.