Linda Cropp’s mayoral campaign received a welcome boost Tuesday as Mayor Anthony Williams threw his support behind the D.C. Council chairman’s bid, saying she would maintain the District’s economic progress and lead the city through prosperity’s door.
Though the Democratic primary is not until Sept. 12, Williams said there was no point putting off the endorsement. He said he “reflected” on the other four candidates before tossing his “unequivocal” support to Cropp, whom he said is the only candidate who played a role in the District’s successes, understands that the achievement is fragile and has a vision of “where we need to go.”
“You’re getting all the things you like about Tony Williams, but you’re getting Linda Cropp on top of it,” the mayor said outside the Tivoli Theater in Columbia Heights.
Cropp said Williams is “trusting me to protect his legacy of change.”
“I am running for mayor because there is no way I’m going to let this city slide back,” she said. “Not one inch.”
Cropp, the two-term chairman and former School Board member, is running neck-and-neck with Ward 4 CouncilMember Adrian Fenty in the mayor’s race. Williams said his endorsement and personal involvement should provide momentum, and observers expect it will jump-start the campaign in Wards 1, 2 and 3.
“It’s not too early for her,” Jonetta Rose Barras, a local political commentator and Examiner columnist, said of Cropp. “She’s losing right now. She needs the lift.”
Williams and Cropp have had their issues in the past, notably on the Washington Nationals stadium — a deal Cropp almost single-handedly stymied in 2004. But the chairman, Williams said, is the only candidate who can take the helm and “lead us forward and farther.”
“It doesn’t mean anything because her rhetoric doesn’t match her record,” Ward 5 Council Member Vincent Orange, another mayoral candidate, said of the mayor’s support.
R. Calvin Lockridge, a Ward 8 advisory neighborhood commissioner and Cropp backer, said Williams’ endorsement “will not make a difference” east of the Anacostia.
The mayor’s popularity has never translated well in wards 7 and 8, and Cropp’s support there will have to come from entrenched neighborhood leadership, Lockridge said.
