The prim lady walking up Webster Street on Wednesday evening asked if I was headed to cast a vote at the Ward 4 Democrats’ mayoral straw poll.
“Crazy down there,” she said, pointing across 16th Street to the St. George Church. “But good crazy.”
Depends on your definition of crazy. Do you like crowds of people waving placards and shouting through bullhorns? Are you OK with folks grabbing you and asking personal questions? Can you handle 100-degree heat in temperature and talk?
This was retail democracy. Hands on the voter, spit-in-your face rhetoric. Good crazy.
By 6 p.m. voters were already lined up to cast ballots at the church along the leafy section of upper 16th Street locals call the Gold Coast. Battle lines were drawn between the greens, for young incumbent Adrian Fenty, and the grays, for challenger Vincent Gray, the elder city council chairman.
I choose “battle lines” because these people really don’t like one another. I have been covering political campaigns in the city behind the monuments since 1978, and I have never witnessed one where the personal animosity is so raw and where the stakes are so high.
The differences between Fenty and Gray have little to do with politics or policies. Both are Democrats. Both are for better health care, more jobs, more affordable housing, economic development, school reform in some fashion, balanced budgets, yadayada.
Where they differ is the who and the how of governance. Fenty is all about new and young and focused on fast and furious change; Gray would govern with aging players walking in molasses.
The Old Guard dwells in Ward 4. With respect for them and their contributions, I have to say they all hate Fenty and back Gray. There was former Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, screaming down Fenty in the forum. Linda Cropp, whom Fenty beat four years ago, was there with her esteemed husband, Dwight, who worked for Marion Barry back in the day.
Front row in the church forum were the trio who helped elect Marion Barry in 1994: Cora Masters Barry, Rock Newman and Hizzoner Himself, wearing a Vince Gray sticker. Seems the old warriors have come out to knock the upstart off his pedestal.
Old Washingtonians want their city back. They want the top jobs, the fat contracts, their seats at the table. Fenty versus Cropp was a skirmish; this is Armageddon.
Adrian Fenty has done well at executing school reform and rebuilding rec centers and ball fields; but unless he changes course, he’s about to get rolled by the Old Guard. Gray won the vote and the forum.
Marion Barry was holding court with reporters after the forum. “I’m the best political strategist in the country,” he said. Hard to contend with that.
As I was walking away, he said: “Are you going to write something honest before you go to heaven — I mean hell?”
Most honest thing about this race is that it’s a struggle to the death, and I am not sure who will be left standing.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected]
