When at a mayoral forum in Ward 3 last week Mayor Adrian Fenty offered a stringent criticism of challenger Vince Gray’s role in crafting the District’s budget and his stewardship of a city agency in the 1990s, a lot of heads turned and a lot of chatter got started. For as much as some people might not like Fenty personally, they couldn’t ever credibly accuse him of going negative against a challenger. Now they can.
And that’s not something he should shy away from.
We all too often hear candidates for public office accuse their challengers of “going negative,” implying that they’re more interested in slinging mud than they are in discussing the issues. Sometimes it’s true; character accusations like marital infidelity or minor criminal convictions don’t often shed much light on substantive issues of interest to the voters.
But in Fenty’s case, I say keep it coming. Did he go negative? Sure. Was it a shock for everyone there, most notably Gray? Of course. Was he prepared to respond? Definitely not.
But that’s part of electoral politics. Gray has a record, and if he’s looking to be elected to the District’s highest office, he should have to answer for it, just the same as Fenty is expected to answer for his. That we were all surprised to hear Fenty criticize Gray for his role as director of the Department of Human Services in the 1990s or his flip-flop on streetcar funding shouldn’t mean that they’re not valid issues to be discussed. It’s expected that Gray and fellow mayoral hopeful Leo Alexander will pick apart Fenty’s record and use it against him, so why shouldn’t Fenty be able to reciprocate?
To Fenty’s credit, his critiques were substantive and related to Gray’s record in office. At no point did Fenty bring up the controversy around the fence surrounding Gray’s home; only Alexander mentioned it. Additionally, Fenty’s only other real reference to his competitors was to note that they were good critics, while Alexander repeatedly denigrated both Fenty and Gray for being “career politicians.” One thing is being critical, another is being petty. At the forum, Fenty was more the former than the latter.
Deciding on whom to vote for shouldn’t just be based on what they promise or what they selectively pick from their record to highlight how good a leader they’ve been. Voters should also know the mistakes they’ve made, the controversies they’ve been involved with and how their past stints in public office might better predict what their future as an elected leader could look like. Gray wasn’t about to bring up his own past, so why can’t Fenty?
We might not like the tone of it, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth discussing.
