Updated 11/3/2009 12:41:35 PM
ATLANTA -- Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin will vote for Kasim Reed to succeed her as Mayor. But the Mayor did not endorse his candidacy.
Choosing not to keep her vote secret, the Mayor told CNN who she was voting for. "I have not endorsed anyone but I am going to vote tomorrow and I'm going to vote for Kasim Reed," the Mayor said.
It's not a ringing endorsement but many a pundit has questioned how much the Mayor's support would mean to a candidate. At campaign headquarters in West End, Reed held a rally on the final night of his campaign. He said he is happy to have the Mayor's support by way of her vote. "I look at it as a vote of the person who understands the job better than anyone else and I appreciate it and I'm grateful for it," he said.
Lisa Borders spent the last night of her campaign pounding the pavement in Adamsville. She went door to door canvassing voters. She said she was not surprised by the Mayor's vote because Kasim Reed was her campaign manager in 2001 and 2005.
When asked if she would have liked the Mayor's endorsement Borders answered "I would like to have had her vote not her endorsement," she said. "I have learned a lot from her accomplishments and I think I probably learned a lot more from her mistakes."
In a press release from Borders campaign she said Franklin's low-key endorsement of Reed was not unexpected. "Franklin has been working in the shadows of his campaign for a number of weeks, primarily by attacking Mary Norwood," the release said.
Norwood made one of her final stops on the campaign at a coffee shop in the old fourth ward. The heavyweight front runner, according to polls, doesn't expect the Mayors vote to decide anything tomorrow. "I think there will be a runoff," Norwood said. "We know that we've got tremendous support throughout the city but we are certainly looking at another month as a possibility."
Some politicos have speculated that Mayor Franklin may wait until a runoff to endorse a candidate. That may depend on who makes the runoff.
