Good Riddance, Adrian!

A young, hip, attractive, light-skinned Black man, with little political experience but a lot of ambition, reasonably articulate, suddenly acquires real power. In Adrian Fenty's case, as Mayor, he had no clue what to do. He produced no noteworthy results. His opponent in yesterday's Democratic primary, Vincent Gray, probably isn't any better but DC residents were sufficiently fed up with Fenty to vote for Gray. Perhaps unsurprisingly, DC's main papers carried no specific ward by ward analysis; my guess is that two factors mattered: a large Black protest vote, and many residents in the white areas of northwest DC (where I live), most of whom were expected to support Fenty, who didn't vote. Indeed, even Fenty's door to door operatives, when I pushed them aggressively on things like public schools, acknowledged that Fenty wasn't doing a very good job. The ground troops couldn't refute the facts. In this town the winner of the Democratic primary, of course, wins the general election. Barry from DC, you're next.