Reed (black) ad attacks Franklin (black) 'mess at City Hall'

Despite the AJC racial obsession, like I said weeks ago, the Atlanta mayoral run-off is not about race and never was

There was more racial cross-over voting for Mary Norwood and Kasim Reed on Election Day than in any similarly contested Atlanta mayoral election in history (15-25%) and the run-off promises to equal or exceed it, especially when Reed's final ads bite the hands that fed him a huge endorsement, i.e. Shirley Franklin's hands.

• Mayor Shirley Franklin is City Hall and has been for eight years.
• Franklin endorsed Reed on Election Day.
• Norwood, a two-term city councilwoman, has attacked Reed, a veteran of the State Legislature, as an "insider".
• Reed's final TV ad burst attacks the mess at City Hall and promises that a Mayor Kasim Reed will clean it up.

Before the final days, all we heard from the media was how race and gays would decide the run-off.

No matter the leadership issues and the sheer numbers of Republicans whose split will likely constitute the margin of victory, depending on whether Norwood can re-capture those she alienated by trashing her own Republican history.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, like most of the lazy, Drive-by media is obsessed with race and contemptuous of the voters. We are seen as mind-numbed robots, slaves to our skin pigmentation and genitalia. I call the media's pathologies the projection of their own prejudices (and shame at the whiteness of their newsrooms?), but I digress. Enough about the drive-by dead trees.

This Mayoral run-off is about leadership, and again, the view from the Stone Mountain of Georgia is that Reed is best for the job of leading the Capitol of Dixie.

Though Norwood has raised some major issues and is surely correct on many. Norwood is right to suggest that Atlanta can't afford many more police officers, as proposed by Reed.

We are glad that Reed wants to appear tough on crime, but the best way in such tough economic times may well be to get tougher on the streets and the courts than merely in the pocketbook.

Finally, I don't see Reed as an insider except in the endorsement race. He simply has not been a part of the Maynard Jackson machine. Neither has Norwood. Moreover, Norwood seems to have made a career out of not getting inside enough to get anything done. Therefore, I can hardly see a Reed attack on the mess at City Hall as being targetted against anyone but The Mayor.

Does Shirley still vote for Reed?

As related to me by the Astute non-political Boortzian observer from Stone Mountain, races are contests based on merit and not race as an entitlement. She is right and from this Rooster's perspective, the Atlanta mayoralty will be a won based on campaign merit.

Bravo! Let the best candidate win today.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson