Council Chairman Linda Cropp is pinning her mayoral campaign on her 30 years of public service and the experience she’s gained on the School Board and D.C. Council.
Many of the people behind Cropp got their political experience working for Marion Barry sometime during his four terms as mayor or countless years on the D.C. Council. Indeed, Cropp’s campaign organization contains a veritable “who’s who” of the Barry years.
Cropp’s campaign chair is Elijah Rogers, who served as Barry’s first city administrator before moving on to a successful career in accounting and consulting. A pillar of the community, he’s now trying to hold up Cropp.
Cropp’s campaign is being managed by Marshall Brown, whom I have described as a homegrown political genius. I’ll stand by that, in part because I know that Brown, along with Anita Bonds, ran Barry’s street brigade, producing crowds and votes when necessary.
“You won’t find anyone over a certain age in this town who didn’t work for Marion,” Brown tells me.
That includes Max Berry, who was an essential fundraiser for Barry in his first mayoral campaigns. A lawyer and philanthropist active in local politics, Berry chaired at least one of Barry’s finance committees.
Back in 1988, Berry was one of the first to be honest, forthright and brave enough to tell Barry he was headed down the slope of addiction and malfeasance, which led to the infamous drug bust in 1990.
Now Max Berry is chair of Cropp’s finance committee.
Did I leave out Dwight Cropp, the candidate’s husband? Mr. Cropp served in Barry’s Cabinet in the mid-1980s.
And finally, delve through a few layers in Cropp’s campaign, and you will discover Ivanhoe Donaldson. For recent initiates into D.C. politics,Donaldson was the architect of Barry’s first mayoral victory in 1978.
Donaldson and Barry rose up through the civil rights movement and came to D.C. together in 1965. It’s not too farfetched to think of Donaldson as the man who created Barry. When Barry took office, Donaldson was his confidant, strategist and enforcer.
But Donaldson couldn’t enforce his own moral guidelines. He embezzled $190,000 in city funds, did a jail term and repaid part of the funds. He quietly returned to consulting, including advising Barry in 1996, his last term as mayor.
Now Donaldson is working for pollster Diane Feldman, who is polling for — guess whom? — Linda Cropp.
There are many ways of looking at the lineup of Barry folks behind Cropp. I prefer the benevolent approach. Each of these people — from Rogers and Brown to Berry and Donaldson — brings a wealth of experience, a deep political network and much goodwill to Cropp’s campaign.
Brown and Donaldson are brilliant political strategists. Max Berry brings integrity.
But the Barry contingent also enables Cropp’s competitors and critics to brand her as the candidate of the old guard. D.C.’s establishment, both political and financial, is betting on Cropp to follow Tony Williams and protect its establishment interests.
The same establishment brought us Marion Barry and kept him in office way too long.
Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at [email protected].
