What's the DC DU feel on the at-large coming up?

[Recursion]

I came in kind of reflexively supporting Vincent Orange (as a counterweight to Kwame if nothing else) but after hearing the candidates talk on Kojo this week I kind of like Lopez.

I know he's part of the Fenty apparatus but I liked the idea of someone younger with less historical baggage than the usual suspects. Everybody but he and Orange seemed pretty cookie-cutter.

[Jazz Ambassador]

1. Anybody but Biddle

The last thing the Council needs is a(nother) member voting lock-step with Gray and Brown. Those two are DC politics at their worst (or at least as bad as it gets short of Barry).

[jdm9955]

2. nm

[fightthegoodfightnow]

3. Orange is a Homophobe

Orange is a Homophobe.

I will never forget his 'family values'campaign literature when he ran unsuccessfully for mayor. He changes his tune depending on who he is talking to. Unfortunately, he's lost so many times, he mlght actually win in a special election.

Gag.

[Recursion]

4. Well, that's sad news

It will be nice to have a counterweight to Brown on the council, but I'm sad to hear about that.

[Chan790]

5. I was pulling for Weaver but he lost...

it wasn't the best field to choose from though.

I dislike Orange because I personally know Vincent Orange, he was the councilman for Ward 5 when I was working for a community organization in Brookland, my first job out of college. In addition to the previously mentioned homophobia (which I was not aware of until the most recent election), he's the most self-centered politician I ever met...in DC local politics that is saying something. Every conversation I was ever a party to involving Vince Orange revolved around "How will X make Vince Mayor some day?" (Even Adrian Fenty kept up the pretense that he was in it for the people rather than himself); the guy's got an ego the size of the national mall. When they built the Home Depot over on Rhode Island Av. NE, he not only took all the credit, he declared that it was going to save the city. Mind you, it did about as much to revitalize that part of NE as any big-box store could but I think declaring it the saving act of the city (and himself DC's savior, by-extension) might be ludicrously over-reaching.

But as I said, the field sucked. Biddle is, as I'm certain you noticed, Kwame's pocket stooge. I didn't actually know anything about Lopez but I didn't really think he had a shot; I saw like a total of 3 signs for him. Mara's a DC Republican and not the sort of small-government social-moderate "let's clean up the graft and scheiss rather than raise taxes to pay for it" DC Republican that David Catania was before going wild-card indie. That left Weaver who struck me as quietly-competent if unspectacular and somewhat lacking in higher ambitions. (Frankly, DC needs a few of those.)

Of course, since I now live in Wheaton, MD (and consider NYC to be home; this being an unfortunate inconvenience of being temporarily displaced back towards DC), my opinion doesn't really matter.