Marc,

What evidence do you have that the WashPo endorsement makes a difference in white parts of town? Are white people more likely to read the newspaper? Are white people more easily swayed by what a group of "educated" reporters and business owners think?

Marc does what almost all newspapers writers do - go with their own personal assumptions, and pass them off as fact.

I was prepared for Fenty for a lot of the reasons discussed in this article, but now I will not vote for him because he opposed the curfew/camera-placement bill. I've lived in the area for 30 years and the only reason I moved into the city was Tony Williams's effort to make it safer. The #1 priority of the new mayor has to be reducing crime, not only because that is the watershed from which so many other benefits flow, but because the crime waves of the past turned Washington into a national joke rather than an attractive place to live. Go Cropp!

At the risk of subjecting myself to the riducule of "then why do you waste your time reading it?", let me just say how truly blessed the D.C. area is to have someone like you, Marc, who knows the right answer about everything and the true motivations of everyone. Your ability to make whining tranlate into text is unparalleled and your sanctimoniousness reminds me of Joe Lieberman. If you entered the profession of journalism to become a sounding board for (if not the voice of) the chronically paranoid and constantly disatisfied, then well done. Otherwise, step back and ask what the hell good you do. If you want to write opinion pieces, do it. If you want to be some sort of ombudsman for the populace, do that. If you just want to get a head start on being a crochety old man, do that. But if you want to combine all of these and spout off with a constantly negative, whiney, whoa-is-us grumpiness, spare the rest of us and just make your own family miserable having to deal with your dourness.

The world is far from perfect and pointing it out nonstop and making everyone feel like a victim of someone or something else doesn't address the real problems.

Marc--Is it a done deal that the Post will endorse Cropp? Your blog certainly makes it seem so.

Thank you Marc for your insightful analysis of the candidates. My only quibble is your paralleling Michael Brown with Marion Barry. Yikes!! While I am a longtime Fenty supporter, an avid volunteer for him, and plan to vote for him come September, I am very impressed by Brown and think he would make a great addition in a Fenty Administration. I would never compare Brown with Marion Barry, who has become "the last, the least and the lost" and whose presence on the Council continues to make a laughingstock of our City.

And for all the Fenty critics on the crime bill: It is DC's version of the Patriot Act. There is no evidence that demonstrates that cameras prevent crime and lots of evidence that they are a waste of money and erode citizen involvement in their own neighborhoods.

Downtown was made safe by the decades-long efforts of Terry Lynch, a Fenty supporter from way back, and his Downtown DC Cluster of Congregations.

This camera deal and crime bill is a bunch of hogwash that certain councilmembers tried to ram over the transom several years ago. And clearly, Fenty knows that it is a waste of money and nothing but political grandstanding. We should ask the sponsors of this legislation who is going to benefit financially from the camera contracts and politically from the police union votes.

eeofdc,

What do you think about the Sinclair Skinner scandal as addressed by Marc Fisher last week?

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2006/07/fenty_his_aides_keeper_1.html#comments

As usual, the choices of elected officials we have here in DC ranges from bad to incompetent to worse. Ultimately though, competency (or lack thereof) doesn't make a whit of difference in the end thanks to our illustrious overlords on Capitol Hill that have the power to nullify any bill or law that bumps against some red state conservative's arbitrary social or economic mores.

Michael: Maybe after Fenty addresses the Sinclair issue, Cropp and her fans can address the "Barry" connections. The following was printed on July 18.
___________________________________________

Fenty needs to answer questions about Skinner and his role in a Fenty Administration. But if there is truth in the following article written by Duncan Spencer for the May 24, 2006 issue of the Hill newspaper, then we are also owed an answer from Linda Cropp concerning the old line Barry cronies in her campaign and what role they will play in her administration. The article is printed below.

CROPP OF YAWNS
Tony's dull decision

Need more proof that Mayor Tony Williams (D) is bored out of his skull?

Item: His mayoral-race endorsement of the city's tedious, unimaginative, business-as-usual City Council chairwoman, Linda Cropp (D). Sadly, it was inevitable that Cropp, who operates out of sight and behind closed doors, and whose only great attribute is patient ambition, should get Williams' nod.

Mrs. Cropp, a failure on the school board, hack as a City Council member, fumbler and backtracker as chairwoman, taker of all sides of a position, will usher in the new post-Williams era under a cloud of euphemisms, clichés and old Marion Barry cronies.

There seems little chance that voters will revolt against Cropp, even though she is as different from Williams as chalk to cheese. Without a crisis to awaken voters, her closest challenger, Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4), is seriously damaged and the other candidates will split the anti-Cropp vote.

Cropp has quite naturally surrounded herself with political relics of the dysfunctional Barry era. In fact she's married to one of them, Dwight Cropp, a senior Barry adviser, a man who has defended Barry for turning City Hall into a job bank.

Dwight Cropp left politics to become a professor at George Washington University in 1989, the year before Barry was arrested and charged in the infamous crack cocaine sting. Barry associates' names include Elijah Rogers, Marshall Brown and Max Berry, and, according to veteran reporter Harry Jaffe, even Ivanhoe Donaldson, Barry crony and Barry's top strategist in his first mayoral campaign, a man who went to jail for embezzling city funds, is indirectly involved, working for Cropp pollster Diane Feldman.

These connections don't prove that Cropp is another Barry; it's generational. Barry and Cropp arrived in D.C. the same year (1965) both served on the school board, both came up through the City Council. The institutional memory and the mind-set are parallel. But don't look for Barry's charm or his in-your-face attitude toward Congress.

The primary is now hers to lose. The most voters can hope for is that she will be a faithful trustee of the Williams trust fund -- an inheritor, not a creator. The danger is that the cronies are smiling, ready and waiting to revive the bad old days of Barry, and soon may well have free access to 1 Judiciary Square.

------------------------------------------

Posted by: DC Democrat | July 18, 2006 12:02 PM

What a wonderful web of bogus accusations and innuendo posing as opinion.

The hack that wrote this makes Fisher look like a real reporter.

While I disagree with Fenty's stand on the crime bill, I do believe that it is principled, as with his stand against publicly funding the stadium. Cropp essentially tries to be all things for all people. Her stand on the parking issue is inexplicible. DC needs a generational shift.

I think it is a foregone conclusion that Cropp will garner the Post endorsement -- the question is how often and how vociferous it will be. I don't think Mark's far off in the influence by race. Many of us view the Post with suspicion, while Marion Barry and others benefited in Ward 3 enormously from the Post endorsement to gain the Mayor's seat, as did Sharon Pratt Dixon, if I'm not mistaken.

Will repeated Post endorsements of Cropp be enough to upend the people's candidate Fenty? He has been so effective in delivering services, so effective in garnering grassroots support and contributions (twice as many as Cropp, who relies on the developer dollars inordinately), and so effective in reaching out to voters that I think his voters feel more of a stake in this election than Cropp's, who represent more of the same.

No matter what the Post does, I think Fenty will take Ward 3 -- most all my neighbors seem to be supporting him anyway.

Marc,

When are you going to comment on the Ward 3 race, and the strange and bizarre posts in the Washington Post DC Wire blog?

If, by more of the same from Cropp, you mean a steady, successful guiding of this city away from the oblivion and race baiting and disorganization of the Barry years and the Fenty/Sinclair connection into the dawning of a prosperous city you are right.

what Mr. Fenty voted against here is a list of the bill particulars:
$8 million to put 300 more officers on the streets right now with 6 day shifts

2.5 million for the Department of Employment Services for a 33-week, intensive job training program for at-risk citizens, including in-school youth, the homeless, and those battling substance abuse.

$380,000 for an additional 100 youth for an effective Partnership for Success program which includes:

$200,000 for targeted gang/crew mediation in targeted neighborhoods

$70,000 to expand recreation and street outreach in targeted neighborhoods

$50,000 for the Gang Intervention Partnership with the police

$200,000 for adult reintry programs including housing and job assistance

$250,000 to initiate a gun buy back program

$1.2 million to fund recreation programs

posted by Ward 3 Blogger

Ryan, I sympathize with the premium you put on public safety. It obviously has a great impact on our quality of life. But putting our youth -- the majority of whom are good kids -- under house arrest to make newcomers feel safer is not the answer. (By the way, I am _sure_ that cops are going to be enforcing the curfew as stringently in Ward 3 as they are in Ward 8.) Only one councilmember saw this as a non-solution and made the politically tough vote.

>

No, what I was alluding to was someone who has sat in public office for so long, who has spent years on the School Board and as School Board President, and has so little to show for all the wasteful dollars spent.

"Experience" spending more $$ per student than just about any jurisdiction to garner crumbling and destitute schools -- without constuctively fixing the problem -- isn't the sort of experience many voters are looking for.

It is hard to find a reason to get excited about Marie Johns. She gets lots of good press and exposure from the Post. But what has she done? She's served as CEO of Verizon DC (check her campaign bio). So if you love the service you get from Verizon, vote Johns. If you love waiting for days only to have the technician misdiagnose or fail to fix a problem, vote Johns. If you love being kept on hold when you need service, vote Johns. Good responsive service to constituents is critical for mayoral success. Why would anyone want Verizon's lousy service writ large?

Oh I see, so the School Board President should spend all of their time on the tiniest of details whilst runningone of the bigger school systems in the country.

Laying all of that at the feet of Cropp is silly. There were innumerable factors that complicated her tenure on the Board, not the least of which is that the Board is like a schoolyard, complete with petty rivalries and the like.

Compare that to Cropp's tenure on the Council -- bringing a baseball team (and billions in future revenue) to the City. Where was Fenty on that? He didn't even (and probably still doesn't) understand that the stadium is being paid for by a one time already sunseted tax on businesses. His contant rant that the money should go to schools shows that he is ilinformed and/or ignorant of the issue. Is that really the kind of leadership we want in this city?

This was a pretty messed-up poll. There are so many young people in it -- and so many people who aren't registered Democrats -- that I don't think it's an accurate reflection of who's actually going to vote. It's Fenty's dream turnout, not based in reality.

GP:

Cropp has been very consistent in funneling taxes and resources to developers. Fenty has been very consistent in pushing for resources to go to schools and in initiatives to improve our schools.

Baseball's great, but don't tell me that it's a greater priority to provide over half a billion dollars to millionaires than it is to ensure that our children are educated in safe and productive schools. If you want to take that position, fine, Cropp's your candidate. Your claim that the opposite position is ignorant, however, is just off the wall.

Yeah, blame the poll. You Croppers are too much...

Running a big city is a complex job and big city politics are inherently corrupt, although Washington, believe it or not, is cleaner then most. Adrian Fenty has plenty of hacks and people of dubious alliances affiliated with him. The difference between Linda Cropp and Adrian Fenty is that Mrs. Cropp has the street smarts, experience and judgment to keep these factions in check (like in the baseball thing, like it or not she did make ad ne deal better) whereas if "the kid" gets in it will be anything goes.

Many of the folks attributed as being old Barry cronies are with Fenty as well. Maybe that is because Marion was a good Mayor for a long time and these were people who made careers in public service, just a guess. Only someone who is shortsighted would conclude that everyone in anyway associated with city government during the Barry years is corrupt.

I like Adrian Fenty, I think he is a nice person with a future in public service but lets face it, the kid is very, very green and he ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer!

I don't think Fenty is mature enough or ready to be mayor. I'm still shocked that he beat Charlene Drew Jarvis for that council seat! He's definitely a good campaigner, but I don't think he's a good representative. Is it true that he used to be Michael Brown's intern?

As for Michael Brown, he's a great orator and seems to truly care about this city,in an inclusive way. I don't understand why his candidacy hasn't done better. I think there may be some folks who feel that he can contribute to the city in so many ways, other than by being mayor -- he seems to have options the other candidates don't have, which actually further illustrates his love of DC.

Marie Johns, I don't get. She has done nothing and is completely undeserving.

Vincent Orange, he's too nutty and unpredictable.

Linda Cropp, I trust her, she's paid her dues, and I will probably vote for her.

Still can't believe Fenty beat Jarvis? You are out of touch. It wasn't even close -- Fenty, against the odds, beat one of the most entrenched and heavily funded councilmembers, Jarvis, 57%-43%.

It sounds as if you have not had much exposure to Fenty. The guy is extraordinarily smart, surrounds himself with good people, and brings a wealth of knowledge to the job.

I'm biased because I happened to have seen him introduce needed legislation (the Civil Rights Tax Fairness Act), promptly shepherd it through another member's committee and, despite a negative revenue impact, get it passed by the Council and signed by the Mayor less than a year from introduction; no small task. I've seen what he's done for his constituents and for development in needed areas in Ward 4. He is principled and can be uncompromising at times, but that's not all bad.

Ward 3,
Fenty surrounds himself with smart people? Like who? Sinclair Skinner?

The person who published this drawing exudes intelligence to me.

http://www.dumpskinner.com/defender_issue3.jpg

Any intelligent politician would have dumped Skinner's a$$ a long time ago.

Fenty needs to answer questions about Skinner and his role in a Fenty Administration. But if there is truth in the following article written by Duncan Spencer for the May 24, 2006 issue of the Hill newspaper, then we are also owed an answer from Linda Cropp concerning the old line Barry cronies in her campaign and what role they will play in her administration. The article is printed below.

CROPP OF YAWNS
Tony's dull decision

Need more proof that Mayor Tony Williams (D) is bored out of his skull?

Item: His mayoral-race endorsement of the city's tedious, unimaginative, business-as-usual City Council chairwoman, Linda Cropp (D). Sadly, it was inevitable that Cropp, who operates out of sight and behind closed doors, and whose only great attribute is patient ambition, should get Williams' nod.

Mrs. Cropp, a failure on the school board, hack as a City Council member, fumbler and backtracker as chairwoman, taker of all sides of a position, will usher in the new post-Williams era under a cloud of euphemisms, clichés and old Marion Barry cronies.

There seems little chance that voters will revolt against Cropp, even though she is as different from Williams as chalk to cheese. Without a crisis to awaken voters, her closest challenger, Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4), is seriously damaged and the other candidates will split the anti-Cropp vote.

Cropp has quite naturally surrounded herself with political relics of the dysfunctional Barry era. In fact she's married to one of them, Dwight Cropp, a senior Barry adviser, a man who has defended Barry for turning City Hall into a job bank.

Dwight Cropp left politics to become a professor at George Washington University in 1989, the year before Barry was arrested and charged in the infamous crack cocaine sting. Barry associates' names include Elijah Rogers, Marshall Brown and Max Berry, and, according to veteran reporter Harry Jaffe, even Ivanhoe Donaldson, Barry crony and Barry's top strategist in his first mayoral campaign, a man who went to jail for embezzling city funds, is indirectly involved, working for Cropp pollster Diane Feldman.

These connections don't prove that Cropp is another Barry; it's generational. Barry and Cropp arrived in D.C. the same year (1965) both served on the school board, both came up through the City Council. The institutional memory and the mind-set are parallel. But don't look for Barry's charm or his in-your-face attitude toward Congress.

The primary is now hers to lose. The most voters can hope for is that she will be a faithful trustee of the Williams trust fund -- an inheritor, not a creator. The danger is that the cronies are smiling, ready and waiting to revive the bad old days of Barry, and soon may well have free access to 1 Judiciary Square.

------------------------------------------

Ward 3 Blogger:
Those nice juicy earmarks are the sugar-coating that tempts people to swallow what is, at best, a placebo and, at worst, poison. Also, don't forget, all the $$$ for these goodies must be spent or encumbered by the end of the FY, which is Sept 30. Let the ward-level buy-offs begin!

People should take a look at the causes of the rise in juvenile crime, and try to address those, rather than putting into law an unenforceable curfew. Really, now. Did anyone notice that MPD prioritized getting kids off the street during the school year, when the curfew was 11, or even recently, when it was 12? I didn't. I noticed my 311 calls for juvenile delinquency, drug dealing, public drinking, etc. getting wait-listed for 30-45 minutes while MPD responded to other crimes, those of the life-threatening sort.

All I want to hear is what Adrian's solution to the crime problem is. He voted against one but didn't offer his own solution. That was disappointing.

It never ceases to amaze me how every election year the same drone and dribble of news coverage and punditry about mayoral candidates gets discussed. Will there ever come a time when the REAL issues and concerns of everyday average hard working Washingtonians (longtimers and newcomers) get comprehensively addressed. After 38 years in DC, it appears that what matters is the money and moronic campaign rhetoric. Too quote a lesser known, but highly engaged and articulate candidate, "D.C. is not an abbreviation for Dumb Citizens." Hopefully local news media and blogs will raise the level of intelligent discussion to what really matters to most District residents: public safety, affordable housing, much better schools, responsible spending of our tax money, and TRULY ACCOUNTABLE public officials. In the meantime, as quiet as it's kept, our REAL best bet for an intelligent and capable mayoral candidate, and a smart discussion of what matters in our city, may be found at the website of Dennis Moore. On election day, you can't say you didn't know!
http://www.mooreforpeople.com/html/dennis_moore_for_dc_mayor.html

It would really be nice to see the POST confirm the desire of D.C. residents wanting a change in municipal government. The so-called front-runners are "cut from the same cloth". Why wouldn't the POST want to be part of a truly new, fresh and reform minded administration, for the sake of the city, its residents, business community and children endorse Marie Johns, a person I believe who is sincere to change and truly addressing the many issues and concerns facing the District.

To Northwestdc:

The fact that Fenty voted against a window-dressing measure is consistent with taking a realistic and wholistic approach to crime-fighting. His plan is outlined here: http://www.fenty06.com/pdf/PUBLICSAFETY.pdf

THIS TIME LET'S VOTE FOR SUBSTANCE D.C.!

It never ceases to amaze me how every election year the same drone and dribble of news coverage and punditry about mayoral and council candidates gets discussed. Will there ever come a time when the REAL issues and concerns of everyday average hard working Washingtonians (long-timers and newcomers) get comprehensively addressed. After 38 years in DC, it appears that what matters is the money, moronic campaign rhetoric, and irrelevant statistics. Too quote a lesser known, but highly engaged and articulate candidate, "D.C. is not an abbreviation for Dumb Citizens." Hopefully local news media and blogs will raise the level of intelligent discussion to what really matters to most District residents: public safety, affordable housing, much better schools, responsible spending of our tax money, and TRULY ACCOUNTABLE public officials. In the meantime, as quiet as it's kept, our REAL best bet for an intelligent and capable mayoral candidate, and a smart discussion of what matters in our city, may be found at the website of Dennis Moore. On election day, you can't say you didn't know!
http://www.mooreforpeople.com/html/dennis_moore_for_dc_mayor.html

http://miami.indymedia.org/mail.php?id=5313

It is clear the Cropp campaign team are really responding to this blog more than any others.