Atlanta mayors in heated proxy fight | www.myajc.com

On its face, the race for Atlanta City Council seat, Post 3, is simply an election pitting a sullied incumbent against a wide-eyed newcomer.

But the campaign has exploded into a covert proxy war between Mayor Kasim Reed and former Mayor Shirley Franklin, reminding some of Cold War battles between the superpowers, and transformed a minor political race into the talk of the town.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed speaks during a news conference on developments around the Falcons Stadium at Atlanta City Hall on Friday, … read more

While the the mayor and his predecessor have not gone at each other directly, they’ve come close. And people who know the two are puzzled at how the campaign has degenerated into such a nasty and personal tit for tat.

Recently, in a press conference held on the Beltline, Franklin, who backs neophyte Andre Dickens, called out Dickens’ opponent, attorney H. Lamar Willis, for running a questionable charity and for getting disbarred for not turning over an injured child’s cash settlement. A couple days after Franklin’s salvo, Willis faced cameras outside City Hall and fired back at Franklin and her family, saying the former mayor had once harbored her drug-dealing felon son-in-law in her home. He also referred to Franklin’s son and daughter, a personal attack on family members that violated the unwritten rules of campaigning.

The increasing venom has caused many to shake their heads.

“I’ll be honest with you up front, we don’t know why,” said William Boone, an associate professor at Clark Atlanta University who specializes in Atlanta politics and was speaking first-person plural about Atlanta’s black political establishment. “There seems to be something going on. It looks like a proxy fight. It’s certainly unusual for the city of Atlanta to have this kind of situation.”

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