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Powering Down: Mayor Kasim Reed says goodbye to the only job he’s wanted since he was 13
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Candidate
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Dec 22, 2017 07:26pm |
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| Category | Profile |
| Author | Steve Fennessy |
| News Date | Wednesday, December 20, 2017 01:25:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | TUESDAY, NOV. 7, 2017
10 P.M.
ELECTION NIGHT
In the Coretta Scott King suite on the second floor of the Hyatt Regency, the 59th mayor of Atlanta was doing something he’s never enjoyed nor been particularly good at. He was waiting. Waiting—and this was the worst part—to be summoned. Downstairs, the supporters of Keisha Lance Bottoms, his heir apparent, were also waiting, but at least they were sipping $11 well drinks and, when the DJ played the right song, doing the Wobble. Not that the mayor drinks. Or wobbles. He’d taken off his navy blue suit jacket and was sitting at the chair positioned at the center of the rectangular table, itself positioned at the center of the suite. There were TVs switched on at both ends of the room, and his friends and supporters and staffers clustered about them, waiting for the results to come in. This being Fulton County, where election returns take so long you’d think they were counting votes on an abacus, there was down time. Someone put a cold can of Coca-Cola on the table in front of the mayor, and he popped it open. He pulled out his phone and started scrolling.
A mayor of a big city has a gravitational force. The closer you get, the stronger the pull, until you find yourself in an orbit, and the next thing you know, you’re measuring your path against those of all the other satellites. Who’s drawing closer? Who’s pulling away? Kasim Reed had spent the last 2,865 days of his administration taking a tactical pleasure in the jockeying around him. From the outside, it may appear enervatingly chaotic—the backbiting, the scrambling for his audience and approval—but to a certain personality type, it can be motivating. It can drive them to excellence. As well as to exhaustion. Talk to those who worked for Reed for most or even all of his years in office, and they’ll mention the vacations they plan to take and the lost hours of sleep they plan to catch up on when he leaves in January. |
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