Recount in Atlanta mayor's race confirms winner

Well it took me long enough to find out who will be Mayor of Atlanta next year. Never fear the next Mayor is Black. Of course may the best person win the race, but this time around the best person was Black. Of course that should never matter.

A recount in the race for Atlanta mayor confirmed lawyer Kasim Reed as winner on Wednesday after an election that exposed a racial fault line in one of the leading cities in the U.S. Southeast.

City councilwoman Mary Norwood, who would have become the city's first white mayor since 1974, picked up just one vote in the recount she had requested.

She finished 714 votes behind Reed with some 84,000 votes cast, Fulton County's election office said.

Reed was declared the winner of the December 1 run-off and announced his priorities would include selecting a new police chief and shoring up city finances.

Voting mirrored Atlanta's demographics, with Reed running up big numbers in the south and west, which are majority black and include some of the city's poorest neighborhoods.

Norwood's support base was in mainly white northern council districts, which include some of the city's richest suburbs. Like many U.S. cities, Atlanta's metropolitan area spreads far beyond the city limits.

Both candidates avoided playing up race during the campaign, instead presenting themselves as outsiders best qualified to restore city finances and fight rising crime.

Kasim Reed was a state senator who visited the campus on at least two occasions during my time at Morehouse. He's a young politico who was about to be a rising star and becoming mayor of a major city can only solidify that. Being a mayor is a significant position for certain.