Washington Mayor in Hard Fight to Keep Job

[mike r]

Source: Wall Street Journal

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty leads a city on the rebound, with a falling murder rate, improved services, an urban renaissance and a boom of new schools, bike trails, swimming pools and dog parks. So why does he seem likely to lose Tuesday's Democratic primary? The answer is… Adrian Fenty. Mr. Fenty, a prodigious door-knocker when he won office in 2006, has managed to anger significant swathes of the electorate through what voters see as an aloof, arrogant style. Even as his accomplishments have secured support in the wealthier, predominantly white areas, Mr. Fenty — who is African-American — has alienated so many of the majority black voters that he may well lose his job.

At the same time, Mr. Fenty's love-her-or-hate-her schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, has split the vote further with her drastic overhaul of the education system. "From all conventional indices, he should be winning in a landslide," says longtime D.C. political analyst Mark L. Plotkin. But "it's like a student-council president election. People don't like him. And there's a sense of betrayal among the African-Americans."...

The latest Washington Post poll shows the 39-year-old Mr. Fenty trailing D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray 36%-53% among likely Democratic voters. (Winning the primary is tantamount to winning the election; there is no Republican running.) Students at one D.C. high school even booed Mr. Fenty's commencement address. At a candidate forum, one city-council hopeful drew jeers just by mentioning that he had worked for the mayor. "This will be a textbook case that will be studied for centuries, about how you can alienate and antagonize so many people in a four-year period," jokes Mr. Plotkin.

One focus of controversy is the 40-year-old Ms. Rhee, who has shaken up a school system that was widely seen as failing. She fired 241 teachers this summer for poor performance or licensing problems, and put another 727 on notice that they would lose their jobs if they don't improve. On Friday, she announced big cash bonuses to reward hundreds of the system's best-rated teachers. Last month, the Obama administration awarded D.C. $75 million under the Race to the Top schools competition. But the changes raised the ire of the American Federation of Teachers, which is running radio spots for Mr. Gray.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704362404575480093259232372.html

[LARED]

1. It's sad

Apparently Fenty and Rhee are making nice improvements in DC, and the ones satisfied with the status-quo (failing school system, etc ) are doing their level best to kick them out.

[Chan790]

2. You don't live here do you?

Fenty's about as progressive as Rudy Giuliani. No fucking lie.

How has he achieved these things? Community policing targeting nuisance crimes, criminalization of social issues, ghettoization of not merely the poor but even increasingly the middle class. Fenty's playbook seems familiar...it's borrowed from 9-11 Rudy and Bernie Kerik. Fenty's only governing for the haves. The other side of that coin that they're not telling you is that he's displacing increasingly larger portions of the population into Monty Co. and PGC, they're taking the crime, poverty and social issues with them.

Rhee's another one of those disciples of Duncan: pushing charter schools, privatizing public education and teaching to the test. A real NCLB warrior. She might actually be what costs Fenty his job...it's too bad, he deserves to be annihilated at the polls on his own merits.

The guy he's about to lose to, Vince Grey, is the former director of two of the city's most well respected social service organizations, an outright liberal, the current chairman of the DC council...oh and he's been the guy fighting Fenty on Fenty's plans to make DC a playground of the rich every step of the way.

There is only one actual Democrat in this race and it ain't Fenty. That's the great fault of DC and the one-party monopoly. You can find the entire spectrum of political ideologies in a far too big tent.

Edit: Isn't this what they're always telling us on the left? Go to the polls in the primaries and kick the bad Dems out. If we want libs running in the GE, we need to turn out for the primaries. Oh how they kvetch when we do just that. :eyes:

[elleng]

3. Don't think so. I think its a personal/attitude thing, NOT 'satisfaction w status quo'.

[Name removed]

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