The two front-runners in the D.C. mayor’s race went head-to-head Monday afternoon and quickly came out swinging, sharpening up their attacks as the Democratic primary inches ever closer.
D.C. Council Member Adrian Fenty and Council Chairman Linda Cropp are the clear leaders in the polls with two weeks until the Sept. 12 primary. The televised one-hour debate from the News Channel 8 studios in Rosslyn was the first — and only scheduled — opportunity for the two to meet face-to-face.
The exchanges swiftly turned negative.
“Knocking on doors does not make a good mayor necessarily,” Cropp said of Fenty’s reputation as a strong campaigner. “It says you’re very good at knocking on doors. But once you get into office, you then have to run the government.”
Fenty accused Cropp of turning the campaign negative only after falling behind in the polls.
“If you’ve been in office for 26 years and you can’t run on your own record,” Fenty said, “then something’s really wrong.”
Cropp, an elected D.C. leader for decades, said she’s “proven leadership and proven experience” balancing 10 straight budgets and improving the city’s bond rating. Twenty-six years, she said, is not enough: “There’s more work to be done.”
Fenty, the second-term Ward 4 representative, called himself the “natural successor” to Mayor Anthony Williams, though Williams has endorsed Cropp. Fenty said he would bring “more energy, more follow-through, more attention to detail” to the D.C. government, “hire good people and hold them accountable,” and run the city like a business.
The candidates might have spent as much time slamming each other as they did touting their own records.
Cropp continued to challenge Fenty’s membership on the board of a failed charter school and his record as an attorney — he was admonished last year by the D.C. Bar for his “incompetent” care of an elderly man’s estate.
