Throughout any election year in the District, there are community events that are “must-attends” for candidates for public office: Columbia Heights Day has joined the Palisades Fourth of July parade and Georgia Avenue Day in this column.
Every two years, Adams Morgan Day is littered with candidate stickers and campaign fliers the next morning. While Adams Morgan Day is no longer quite the celebration of foods from around the world peddled by local vendors it once was, candidates still show up in force. They are unable to pass up a last chance to mingle with this many potential voters gathered along a few narrow blocks, as the festival is held just days before primary day in September.
This year was no different. This blogger strolled up and down 18th St., NW Sunday after to take in this year’s politicking.
Thie blogger stumbled upon a scene unfolding in this year’s best bit of unintentional political theatrics. Below “shadow senator” Michael D. Brown is besieged in this trek into daylight. Brown, of course, has been roundly denounced Phil Mendelson, the man he’s challenging for the Democrats’ At-Large council nomination, for insufficiently drawing the distinction between himself in the minds of the electorate with another pol who is not on the ballot this year, failed mayoral candidate-cum-Independent at-large Council Member Michael A. Brown.
Below, Michael D. Brown gets an earful from a Mendelson supporter, and his verbal “shadowboxing” clearly fail to placate her. (Note Brown is obscuring his preference for mayor; he sports both Vince Gray and Adrian Fenty stickers prominently.)
Adams Morgan falls in Ward One, home to a vigorously contested primary. Incumbent Jim Graham – whose costume seems to resemble “Late-Night Informercial Clown” Matthew Lesko more and more these days – asked constituents for another term near his tent, taking a break from making the rounds.
Challenger Jeff Smith moved around, and encroaching on Graham’s territory, perhaps looking to greet people avoiding the council member.
Graham’s other challenger, Bryan Weaver, held court at his table, fitting as Adams Morgan’s main drag fails in the ANC members Single Member District.
A sign of how politically-charged things can get in this nightlife stripped neighborhood, a candidate for the micro-local governmental advisory board set up a table as elaborate as the tables representing council and mayoral campaigns.
Campaign workers and unaffiliated festival-goers alike reported sightings to this blogger of both Vince Gray and Adrian Fenty, each replete with placard-waving entourage, in conflicting directions. Despite jogging up and down 18th St., this blogger couldn’t catch up to the hoopla, so we ambled over to the campaigns’ literature tables.
Here a diverse team of Gray volunteers, including Juan Carlos Ruiz of the Latino Federation, set out to canvass the crowd.
Team Fenty has devised an ingenious plan to deflate any guilt white voters might have in displaying signs of Fenty support in the racially diverse crowd: a volunteer who seems not to comprehend English, allowing her to ignore demurrals, and slap a Fenty sticker on now-embarrassed passersby anyway.
Not every candidate was focused on Tuesday’s primary. Here two candidates who won’t have to face voters until November conferred: Independent at-large Council Member David Catania, and Ward One school board hopeful Patrick Mara.
More intrigue for November? DCGOP chair Robert Kabel chats amiably with a Fenty fan. Will he write in Adrian Fenty on the line for mayor in his party’s primary, too?
