Shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday, Adrian Fenty emerged from his ramshackle campaign office on a semi-seedy strip of Florida Avenue. Word that D.C. voters loved him 2-to-1 over Linda Cropp had reached him. Cops stopped traffic.
Fenty waded across the street to the victory tent erected on the vacant lot — encased in a gaggle of security guys and aides. A burly African-American, serious and unsmiling, led the wedge. Watching from a few yards away, I appreciated Fenty’s moment of innocent joy in his overwhelming victory. And I wondered whether this was the beginning of the end of the man’s unadorned and unguarded contact with Washingtonians that has fueled his rise.
From now on, he will have to operate in a cocoon formed by staff and security aides and supplicants clawing for his time. Will he be lost in the kind of bubble that encases President Bush? Showered with attention for the first time in his 35 years, will Fenty succumb to the intoxicating drug of public adulation, the narcotic of choice for pols?
We witnessed Marion Barry’s tragic decline into addictions. He admitted to drugs, sex and alcohol. To this I would add the draw of the crowd and the trappings of public office. Who can forget the image of Barry strutting into halls surrounded by plainclothes cops? Barry came with an entourage, even when he was trolling the streets after midnight.
During the investigation of Barry’s cocaine use and abuse, we discovered he used his security detail to deliver envelopes of cash to dealers. His Praetorian Guard kept out would-be intruders — and federal drug investigators.
During the campaign, Fenty toured town with no entourage. Fenty drove himself, in his white Ford Expedition, until voting day, the first time I saw another person at the wheel. One car, one candidate. Compare that to Linda Cropp, who drove through the city on Tuesday in a caravan. She had the entourage and the establishment endorsements; he had the direct contact and the endorsement of voters.
Big-city mayors handle security as they wish. I watched Ed Rendell, when he was Philadelphia’s mayor and now as governor, arrive at functions with one cop. In New York, Rudy Giuliani needed a phalanx; Michael Bloomberg prefers the bare minimum security detail.
Fenty has no security now. As mayor, he will have to have an officer or two around. “It will be as minimal as possible,” says Alec Evans, his campaign manager. “He’s never been big on that.”
But will Fenty be big enough to withstand the powerful drug of public love? The one that will cloud his vision and compromise his ideals? This is an imponderable, of course. I would expect his family, especially his two sons, will keep him humble. He shows no signs of the disease, and he’s starting off as a man of the people.
But Huey P. Long had the same start in Louisiana. Maybe Fenty should read “All The King’s Men” as an antidote.
Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at [email protected].
