front page - editorial archives  - search - community

Native Intelligence
	The election is just 14 months away (Published September 5, 2005) By DIANA WINTHROP

For the nation, the three-day Labor Day holiday is the unofficial end of summer. For the District, it is the unofficial kickoff of election season, even though the election is really 14 months away.

D.C. City Council Chairman Linda Cropp makes it official just after Labor Day. The two-term councilwoman has announced she will file formal documents Sept. 7 as a candidate for mayor. (The 23-word press release announced that Cropp will file on Sept. 7, 2004, a date long past.) The announcement by Cropp, an ally of the mayor and a popular politician with the business community, is the almost-official death knell for the two-term mayoralty of Anthony Williams. Many political observers believe it is unlikely that Cropp and Williams will run against one another, even though the mayor continues to "tease" the public about his plans. Williams and Cropp both generate support from the same voter base, though Cropp is known as "the queen of nice." Cropp insists she will not run an "anti" campaign (a veiled reference to well-organized Ward 4 Councilman Adrian Fenty's mayoral campaign) but a "pro D.C. campaign." She just needs to get her dates right.

Lobbyist Michael Brown plans to make his run official on Sept. 14. He will be the fifth candidate on the Democratic side to announce he is a candidate for mayor. Earlier this summer, Ward 5 Councilman Vincent Orange and former Verizon executive Marie Johns also threw their hats into the ring for next year's mayoral election.

Brown, a native Washingtonian, is past finance vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). As the son of the late Clinton administration official Ron Brown, Michael Brown has extensive ties to national party officials and an extensive family network with experience in political campaigns. While his resume contains a mix of national and local credits (he was chairman of the D.C. Boxing and Wrestling Commission), his background could be an asset as well as a liability. Brown has hired Judy Smith, a seasoned public relations person, to be his campaign communications director. Smith, a Republican (Brown says Smith is an old friend and his campaign is all-inclusive), will be remembered as a spokesman involved in many national news stories -- such as Monica Lewinsky, Chandra Levy's family, the prosecution of Marion Barry, the Iran-Contra investigation and the impeachment of President Clinton. It might be tough for her to deal with the mundane concerns of a mayoral campaign after those high-profile events.

Fenty, who was the first candidate to announce and appears to be the most organized at this point, has scheduled an official kickoff rally at the African-American Civil War Memorial on Sept. 10. The rally will be the first of a weekend of events in all wards culminating with a Sept. 12 fund-raiser at the home of former councilman Bill Lightfoot. Whew! And it is only September 2005.

***

Amid the unspeakable horror of this nation's catastrophic flood damage in Louisiana and Hurricane Katrina devastation along the Gulf Coast states, there is actually some good news for D.C. residents: Louisiana's senior member of the U.S. Senate, Democrat Mary Landrieu, may be too preoccupied with flood relief in her own state to continue micromanaging schools in the District. At least that's what many local education activists are saying they hope will happen this fall.

Landrieu, the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations D.C. Subcommittee, has been routinely (though privately) criticized by education advocates as the "queen micromanager" of Capitol Hill. She is an aggressive advocate of taxpayer-funded vouchers for private and religious schools (in the District's case, that means primarily Catholic schools). Some D.C. Public Schools officials are known to derisively call her "Superintendent Landrieu" for her questioning of Superintendent Clifford Janey's decisions by focusing on the day-to-day operations of the school system.

Landrieu's Senate Web site says "she works to be a voice for so many who have no vote in Congress." Perhaps, instead, she will now concentrate on taking care of the thousands of displaced and destitute residents of her own state, who need her support and help. D.C. residents are capable of making decisions (right or wrong) for ourselves.

In the first few emotion-packed days of dealing with New Orleans' devastation, Landrieu earns the "dumbest idea yet award" for calling on President Bush to create a cabinet-level position to oversee flood relief and the billions of dollars needed to rebuild. Exactly how that would ease the federal government's bureaucratic red tape is unclear, given the interagency problems that a Department of Homeland Security doesn't seem to have resolved.

***

Many D.C. residents have family or friends along the hard-hit Gulf Coast. Donna Brazile, veteran Democratic Party activist and former chief of staff to D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, is among D.C. residents who are natives of New Orleans. Brazile, currently a political commentator for CNN, is focused on finding her father and three sisters, whom she has not heard from since Hurricane Katrina hit on Aug. 29. Brazile is using her Web site, www.DonnaBrazile.com, as a resource for others to donate and find help. As the nation's capital, D.C. is a unique city, with so many of our neighbors having settled here from other cities. Many now need our support to reunite with their families and be made whole again.

***

Diana Winthrop is a native Washingtonian. Contact her at diana@thecommondenominator.com.

Copyright 2005 The Common Denominator