There’s an old saying among hard-core political operatives and organized crime bosses: “He wouldn’t stay bought.” Translation is that the recipient of a payoff reneged on the agreement to shut up about an underhanded deal. Rather than keep his silence, he squealed, or leaked or otherwise ratted out the gift-giver.
This maxim applies to Sulaimon Brown, the erstwhile mayoral candidate who has accused Mayor Vince Gray’s campaign of paying him to mercilessly and maniacally harass Adrian Fenty during last fall’s campaign. Brown alleged that Gray’s people gave him envelopes of cash during the race, and Gray himself offered him a fat government job in his administration.
The cash payoffs could be Brown’s fiction; they will be the subject of an investigation of some sort. But we know for sure that Gray put the guy on the health care finance agency payroll for $110,000 a year. When reporters raised questions about Brown and unearthed a sordid allegation that he stalked a young girl, Gray summarily fired him.
At that point Brown became “unbought.” He started spewing accusations, showing up at mayoral press conferences and generally portraying the newly minted mayor as a slimeball.
Gray’s mistake was not keeping Brown “bought.” A seasoned political operative would have quietly moved him to another job at another agency, told reporters that his skills were more valuable elsewhere, and the matter would have faded away.
This might sound crass, but municipal politics is a bare-knuckled sport at times. Patronage is a legal form of payoff. Mayors need savvy, calculating political knife-fighters to protect them from minefields, and to make sure people stay bought.
Gray has no such lieutenant. He lacks a smart, tough, trusted fixer. Think of David L. Cohen, who served as Ed Rendell’s chief of staff when he was Philadelphia mayor in the 1990s. You wanted something done? See David. You wanted something undone, quietly and efficiently? Call David.
Gray has four women running his political and personnel shop. They are adviser Lorraine Green; press chief Linda Wharton Boyd; chief of staff Gerri Mason Hall; and Judy Banks, who served as personnel chief until last week. All are veterans of the Marion Barry or Sharon Pratt Kelly regimes. They represent exactly what Gray’s critics feared: a return to the musty old ways of the do-nothing District government, where friends hired friends to cash paychecks and not deliver services.
The four ladies let Gray down. They let Brown get hired, then fired, then furious. They took care of their own, by seeing that friends and family got city jobs. In the process, they exposed Gray to ridicule and perhaps a criminal investigation.
Ultimate blame here falls on the mayor. He never took control of his office, let alone the District government. He created yet another layer of bureaucrats between him and the people. He hired retreads — and amateurs.
No one had the sense to keep Brown bought, which begs the question: Are there other Browns out there?
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
