TORPY: Mayor Dickens set for 2nd-term shoo-in; it’s the Atlanta way

Dickens is roundly well-liked, although an opponent could take him up on his tepid response to the water crisis last year, his going after the city’s inspector general or the death of a homeless man last month when an encampment was being cleaned up.

Simply put, hardly anyone of note ever runs against a sitting mayor in Atlanta. It’s an unwritten rule that you don’t mess with a mayor’s second term. It’s almost preordained that a mayor is elected to an 8-year ride.

There’s a long history to this. Since William Hartsfield, of airport fame, was elected to the job in 1937, only two incumbents have been rousted from their seats. One was Hartsfield, himself, who got beat after his first term by someone named Roy LeCraw.

LeCraw, only months into the job, stepped down to join the Army and Hartsfield then returned to office, where he remained for 20 years.

Since then, the only mayor to lose was Sam Massell, who was defeated in 1973 by Maynard Jackson, the city’s first Black mayor.

In fact, the only time a mayor had a close call was in 1997, when longtime City Council President Marvin Arrington lost a relatively close runoff to Mayor Bill Campbell.

Credit: Rich Addicks

Credit: Rich Addicks

Arrington had a shot at defeating the prickly Campbell but then shot his mouth off — as he was wont to do. Arrington derided Jackson, a Campbell supporter, as having been “passing in Cleveland” during the Civil Rights Movement, rather than helping the cause in the South. He tried to backtrack his statements but got beat 53% to 47%.

To run against an incumbent, who are now limited to two terms, you must be courageous or crazy. Or perhaps both.

To campaign against a sitting mayor, you must convince other community leaders to support you publicly and financially. And when things go bad, supporters, like the losing candidate, are left on the outside.

After Campbell won reelection, former Mayor Massell, who at the time was the head of the Buckhead Coalition and an Arrington backer, found it necessary to write a letter of apology to the victorious mayor.

Four years ago, I wrote a similar column about such uphill battles. At the time, violent crime was raging and COVID-19 was in its second year. Still, then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who was considering a second term, would have been hard to beat.

Of the politicians then in office, only then-Council President Felicia Moore raised her hand to take a go at the office.

I noted at the time that a bunch of her fellow council members, including Dickens, daydreamed about sitting in the mayor’s office. But few wanted to stick their necks out. At the time, Dickens said he’d love to be mayor. “It’s a timing thing, and when the timing is right, I’ll make that abundantly clear,” he said, not exactly answering my question.

Soon, the timing was right. Four months later, Bottoms surprisingly announced she was not going to run. Suddenly, the door was opened for Dickens, who jumped in, as did former Mayor Kasim Reed, who missed his old romping ground.

Conventional wisdom (which I agreed with) was that Reed would meet his nemesis, Moore, in the runoff. But Dickens, who was not well known, was able to craft himself as a fresh face and squeaked into the runoff, where he prevailed. He was helped by the entrenched Black Southwest Atlanta political establishment coalescing around him, as it did 24 years earlier around Campbell.

It didn’t matter that Moore, like Arrington, was Black. They were said to be the “Buckhead” candidates, which is Atlantaspeak for white.

Credit: Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Dickens this week said he hasn’t heard of any opposition out there and would like to keep it that way. He added a warning that he can get rough, if need be, like he did last time.

“Every punch I threw and every punch I took, everybody felt all,” he said. “I don’t know if anyone wants to be hit like that. This is a full-contact sport.”

Word has it — that is, five people involved in politics told me — that Reed is gearing up for another shot to retake his old job.

“Aww, hell no,” Reed told me when I called. “I think that’s people saying that to bother Andre.”

Franklin, who got 90% of the vote her second time, told me the term limits make an incumbent more steadfast in hanging onto their seat. “If you consider a U.S. Senate seat is six years, a mayor just has two more,” she said.

“It’s very hard to raise money against an incumbent because of campaign disclosures and people don’t want to be identified as a donor,” she said. “That’s because the power and the influence” the office wields.

Dickens has $1.4 million in the coffers, disclosures say.

“The incumbent mayor already has their system in place, their apparatus, their money,” Moore told me. “People will support an incumbent mayor because they want to win. When in doubt, they lean toward the mayor.”

So, why’d she take the risk four years ago, throwing in against an incumbent.

Moore, who made a name for herself talking about ethics and corruption for two decades on the council, said she just couldn’t wait another four years.

“I said, ‘I’m going to take the steering wheel from the captain or get off the Titanic.’”

A few months later, she was in the water.