Halfway across the District diamond, things were a little more lively outside the early voting site at the Turkey Thicket Rec Center, compared to the staid, almost solemn exercise in civic duty going down at the site in Chevy Chase in far Upper Northwest.
Turkey Thicket, a nebulously defined, and far from unanimously delineated, cluster of modest, tidy homes clustered around Catholic University, sits in Ward 5. Ward 5 takes up a healthy chunk of Northeast D.C. with it’s blocks and blocks of single family abodes that are home to working and middle class African-Americans who have built a tradition of spirited, splintered ward council contests. The victor of the Democratic primary often cobbles together a plurality well under 50 percent of votes cast.
With this early voting center set up in the middle of Ward 5, in the midst of another hotly contested, multi-candidate D.C. council race, the showboating going on outside the Turkey Thicket rec center was still going strong as the clock ticked toward poll closing time for the Saturday before primary day.
Incumbent Council Member Harry Thomas, Jr.’s two most vigorous challengers were on hand themselves, and stationed volunteers at both entrances. Here candidates Delano Hunter and Kenyan McDuffie react in their own ways to brusque rejection as a dismissive voter breezes past them.
The surprise was the utter lack of any of presence from the incumbent’s camp. Harry Thomas, Jr. should know better. His father, Harry Sr., aka “Harry with a Heart,” had as difficult a time forging a plurality every four years as his son has in Ward 5. Harry Sr. was ousted by current council chair Candidate Vince Orange.
Volunteers from other camps mentioned a big event elsewhere in Ward 5 that drew away Thomas’ forces, who had been sighted other early voting days. Another candidate had plenty of purple signs, but no Tracy Turner partisans could be seen. “Tracy Turner’s a straw candidate,” candidate McDuffie averred to this blogger, with a mischievous grin.
The candidates chatted courteously, but their volunteers mingled with amiably, saving their fire for the incumbent.
Onsite election officials were much more wary of this blogger’s polite request to snap a pic or two of the voters actually in the act of voting than the DCBOEE officials in Chevy Chase. Clearance was needed from the DCBOEE employee stationed at the door, her supervisor, and then passed onto a media relations officer at with a very helpful D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics HQ. And then we were stopped again by an volunteer polling place officer, who hadn’t yet heard the supervisors’ “all clear.”
As per the picture above, the wait was modest, but the stream of early voters was steady in Turkey Thicket.
The adamant insistence of the two African-American voters seated, awaiting an open polling booth that not even the back of their heads not be captured may point to how sensitive this election is some quarters of D.C. The hesitancy of onsite officials to permit picture taking may be a sign of the sometimes raucously competitive tactics engaged in by the various camps vying for Ward 5’s seat on the council. (See sign shenanigan evidence below.)
Parked along the side streets, there were more campaign vans with Ward 9 plates. Gray for Mayor-festooned vans sported not only Maryland and Virginia tags, but from faraway, Granite-white New Hampshire, too. Team Fenty vans were long, white and clean and had Virginia plates, indicating that the vehicles were probably rentals.
In the council chair contest, Kwame Brown had a table set up. Ward 5 is Vince Orange’s old stomping grounds. His green and orange signs abounded, and large banners to drum up name recognition were draped over fences outside both entrance. A lady wearing a straw cowgirl hat and an orange tee was as friendly as she was forward as she greeted voters and asked for their vote for Vince.
No Phil Mendelson volunteers were on hand at this late hour, just a few signs. Mendelson’s campaign’s failed to post volunteers at Turkey Thicket explaining the “Michael Brown” at-large race name confusion just as they had early in the day in Chevy Chase.
The mayoral race was overshadowed by the Ward 5 contest. Vince Gray had a tent set up away from the entrance, under which volunteers relaxed, seemingly satisfied that their man was well ahead in this part of town. Immigrant-bashing former TV newsman Leo Alexander volunteers did bother to throw some signs up in Turkey Thicket, too.
The most curious, and confusing, sights was folks in orange tee shirts waving green Fenty signs – while standing next to Vince Orange for Council Chair signs, featuring the same color combo.
Where these folks working for Orange, too? (Over-enthusiastic polling place volunteers have been known to electioneer for candidates for multiple offices at once; whether or not the candidates wish to be associated with each other.) No, their orange shirts advertised their union, the “Laborers’” union, the gentleman on the right enunciated as he joked with this blogger, to make sure we all got his affiliation right.
The Construction & General Laborers’ Local Union 657 is one of the few union nods that stuck with Mayor Fenty. Later, if the Laborers’ were behind Vince Orange, too, and they shirt color was meant to subtly promote both, but it turns out they gave their blessing to Kwame Brown, instead.
