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@mikedebonis GRAY WINS -- 128/141 precincts -- Gray 48,924; Fenty 40,746 -- early voting still to come

Hoping all of this much ballyhooed "discontent" with Fenty's "act" will translate to feet on the pavement and bodies in the polling places...

Time will tell.

On the day of the long-awaited primary election I just wanted to submit a post addressed to all of you that have followed my "blog".  Some of you agree with my support of Vince Gray, others did not, but all of you gave me an my submissions a fair reading, and I thank you all for that.  With this being election day, the reason and purpose for my "blog" may very well be coming to an end, as after today either my candidate will effectively be "mayor elect" or he will be defeated.  Either way, whether I continue this effort with a slightly adjusted "concept" (The Unofficial Vince Gray *is* Mayor Blog"?), I do not know, but in the event I decide to end my effort here, I wanted to say a few final words...

To my Readers:

Thanks so much for your encouragement and acknowledgment.  The fact that Gray supporters, the impartial members of the press, undecideds, and even Fenty supporters became regular readers of my blog and felt I was providing a unique contribution to the debate and process is gratification enough for me, and more than I ever would have imagined when I uploaded my very first post, Fenty Turns back on longtime Ward 4 supporters: With Friends Like Fenty, who needs enemies???, back on July 17th.

Little did I know when I began my sly little endeavor that my very humble diversion would end up, exactly 50 postings later, attracting the modest, but still surprisingly large, following it has.  My goal from the start was to provide a place for Gray supporters and those that are/were undecided to hear an average citizen's take on this election from the point of view of someone that once supported Fenty with great hope and with great enthusiasm.  And given that modest goal I have been genuinely humbled that my little effort actually did have some sort of impact and did eventually reach the eyes of regular citizens, political beat reporters, and opinion-makers alike.

Believe it or not, as result of this blog I have even struck up some email correspondences/friendships with supporters of Mayor Fenty.  And despite the decidedly strident, often argumentative, and opinionated tilt to my blog, some of those correspondences have been most constructive and congenial.  Go figure.  Why do I think that was?  I think that happened because in the end most reasonable citizens of the District do want what is best for the city, even if they disagree about who is the best person to lead the the city.  What we ALL have in common, I hope, is that we want the best of Washington, DC, and no matter who wins, we all want the new mayor (or the old one) to succeed.

Of course I want Vince Gray to win.  I believe that he has the temperament and command of the city's challenges and administrative workings to leverage some of the successes of the Fenty Administration and build on them, but in a spirit cooperation, inclusion, and transparency.  However, if Mayor Fenty does win, I do wish him the best and only hope that this "fight of his life" has left him reflective an chastened.  Hopefully, he really does embrace the fact that he has made "mistakes" and is sincere in his assertion that he will be more congenial, more inclusive, and more cooperative if he is granted his second term.  Only time will tell.

So, again, thank you all for your readership.  I hope you all vote today, if you haven't already, and I hope you all do what you can to see to it that as many of your friends and family vote as well.  Our democratic process only works if we participate.  So, whether you are a supporter of Gray, Fenty, or some other candidate, do vote.  And let's hope that no matter who wins, the winner really does embrace the spirit and symbolism captured in the campaign slogan of Chairman Vincent Gray...

ONE CITY!

In her ideal cyberworld, "if you Google something, it shouldn't pick up blogs," the District's first lady reasons from the corner booth at Oya, the stylishy mod Penn Quarter restaurant that has become her lunchtime favorite.

Her manifesto includes her provocative thoughts concerning online meddling -- and muddling of truths. She thinks the Internet is leading us all "down a dangerous spiral," a spiel that even her friends sometimes consider a bit overwrought when she rolls it out at parties. "Everybody stares at me. 'My God. It's the doom of the world,' " she says they're always telling her.

 "There's certainly an awkwardness about my husband," she says in the interview. "It's something he's always had -- a little quirkiness." When they were dating, she sometimes wondered: "Does he not want to speak with me?"

Many believed the Fentys were in Jamaica vacationing when the shooting took place, and the mayor deepened the mystery by refusing to say when he returned from the trip. In the interview, Michelle Fenty discloses that they had already returned from Jamaica when shots were fired. She was at home, she says, and her husband was with their boys at a tennis event.

Mafara Hobson, a Fenty administration spokeswoman who sits in on the interview, interjects at this point: "When it comes to the family, the mayor likes to be private."

I ran across a very interesting piece in the Washington post that postulates that Vince Gray may have been planning his insurgent electoral "gambit" for some time... and that even back when the "conventional wisdom" thought that the trade winds and the campaign war chest made any credible challenge to Fenty a quixotic endeavor at best, Vince Gray was laying in the weeds, reading the tea leaves, and made a bold and calculated series of moves to take advantage of Fenty's hubris, arrogance, and over-confidence...

Anyway, this "theory" has been put forth by Washington Post columnist, Robert McCartney in his piece: "In primary race against Adrian Fenty, Vince Gray has put his political skills on display".  McCartney argues that Vince Gray had both the insight into the District zeitgeist and the understanding of the burgeoning undercurrent of discontent with many african americans voters to postulate that Fenty might really be ripe for the taking... And that after making that assessment, Gray did "did all the right things" to position himself as the "adult in the room" that could swoop in and provide the kind of leadership in the mayor's suite that was just the kind of antithesis to the arrogant, acerbic mayor that a great "silent majority" in the District was clamoring for. 

From Washington Post:

"Gray has been thinking about a possible run for mayor in his typical deliberate way at least since May 2009. I know that because we discussed it then, the first time I had lunch with him. Gray said he was going to wait until March or April of 2010 to announce whether he was going to challenge Fenty.

The beauty of how he's run this is that he made himself seem like the reluctant savior. He sized up Adrian early, took advantage of Adrian's failings and used them against him," said a council member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he has to work with both camps...

Gray took a significant risk when he jumped into the mayoral contest. He gave up what would have been an easy, shoo-in race for reelection as council chairman. The combination of Fenty's travails and Gray's underestimated political savvy seems likely now to make the gamble pay off."

Who woulda thunk it?   My boy Vince Gray be kickin' it all Machiavelli and "Art of War" style.... You go, boy!!!   And all this time we was thinkin' that you were just the mild-mannered bureaucrat that was dragged into the race reluctantly.... You gotta read the piece.  Whether it's true or not, it's a great narrative that I am choosing to embrace because it paints Gray as a full-on, balls-out, hardcore political gangsta!!!

My thoughts on this theory?  Good on 'yah Gray... It takes some big "rocks" to go "all in" (in the poker parlance), and take a run at the then seemingly invincible mayor when you had a chairman's seat on the Council that was absolutely safe.

I LOVE it!!!  For all of those folks that think Gray is a behind-the-scenes, uncharismatic bureaucrat, I think you need to reconsider...  The brother got some ambition, swagger, and more than his fair share of savvy and political insight.

It's very easy "now" to monday morning quarterback and pronounce that Fenty was vulnerable all along... but back in late 2009 and early 2010... Despite the grumblings that Fenty was an autocratic, arrogant, assh*le... there was no one brave enough to take him on...

No one but Vince Gray...

How ya like him now, people!?!

Wednesday morning can't come soon enough for me... how about y'all?

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Note:  For a list of previous posts to the Unofficial Vince Gray for Mayor Blog click here.

Below find a YouTube video forwarded to me by one of my readers. The subject line on the email sent to me with this video attached read: "Pissed off DC residents speak out". 

Charming, huh? : )  and right to the point, too...

Anyway, the video purports to be created by and about city residents that have been fired or otherwise disenfranchised by the mayor and/or his policies.  It states in a superimposed card burned into the opening sequence that: "this video and its views are voiced by concerned citizens and not endorsed by any candidate."

(read: the Gray Campaign don't want you thinking they are behind it).

Give it a look... it's rough, a little long, but an interesting look into how an important (and often overlooked and dismissed and condescended to) segment of our city's population feels about and has been impacted by Mayor Fenty.  There is also an informative scroll near the end of the video that lists many of Fenty's "transgressions".  Well researched.  The scroll has some particularly harsh accusations for the Washington Post editorial board and their alleged "collusion" with the Fenty Campaign, but that ain't news to anyone that's been paying attention in general (or my blog in particular).

Note:  This blogger had no part in the creation of the video (only in its dissemination), i'm just passing it along to my readers.

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Note:  For a list of previous posts to the Unofficial Vince Gray for Mayor Blog click here.

It has come to my attention that a new Claris Poll, a poll that I used as source data for my recent election projection (Vincent Gray’s Path to Victory: Primary Result Projection Analysis – Gray wins by 4.8% to 9.8%), just released a new poll (at 6pm ET) revealing that Vince Gray's lead has expanded from 5% to 7% among likely voters since their last survey.  The favorability divide is even more brutal: 60% approval for Gray; 49% approval for Fenty (11pts).  Though this is a much smaller lead than the monster 17% lead in the recent Post poll among likely voters, it still is an expanding of the lead from the last survey which has to be good for Team Gray.

The news that is worse for Fenty isn't the 7pt divide among likely voters, it's the fact that he is stuck in the high 30's among voters that have already voted or are certain that they will vote for Fenty.  A long way from the high 30's to the high 40's/low 50's. 

I also hear from one of my sources that the City Paper will come out with (or already has released) a poll with Gray leading 11pts.  (39% to 50%).  If you average out the Gray lead in the Claris Poll (7pts); the Post poll (17pts); and the City Paper Poll (11pts); the average margin for Gray is between 11pts and 12pts.  That's a lot for Fenty to overcome, folks.... 

Dude.... Fenty, tell me, brothah... How you gonna get from 38%-39% to a plurality in less than a week? 

The answer:  You ain't.

With this new information out i'm still very comfortable with my previous projection of a 4.8% to 9.8% winning margin range for Gray from my recent post referenced previously.  I might have even been too conservative in my projection it seems, but there is still time left and no reason for Team Gray to get complacent.  Keep those aggressive 'GET OUT THE VOTE' efforts rolling, Team Gray.

See Claris email press release that will drop tonight below:

There is nothing so telling as when you see the rats leaping off a sinking ship.  After showing himself to be a fundraising juggernaut early in the election cycle, Fenty has been out-raised by Gray now for three straight reporting cycles.

Though Fenty still has more "cash on hand", Gray raised more money this period, and even more importantly, has a commanding lead in the polls. 

Gray also boasts over 70 max-out $2000 contributions during this period.  These results fly in the face of those that intimate that Gray's support only comes from the disenfranchised "rabble" that live east of the Anacosita.  What this shows is that Gray's support is widespread and also that there are a lot of the affluent DC residents that see the writing on the wall and are seeking to "court favor" with the likely winner at the last minute.

Where i come from they call that an ass-whippin'...  what you call it where you from?

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Note:  For a list of previous posts to the Unofficial Vince Gray for Mayor Blog click here.

well... maybe this wasn't the greatest job of tea leaf reading and prognostication in the history of local politics, but i was out there early questioning why Mary Cheh would hold back support for a mayoral candidate for this long, and guessing that this meant she was likely to eventually endorse Gray.  The obvious reason  for her waiting so long to endorse was that she was either leaning Gray but circumspect about upsetting her decidedly pro-Fenty constituents, or she was going to stay on the sidelines all together.  For those of you that don't remember my August 23rd post, Will Mary Cheh end up Shocking Ward 3 and Endorse Vince Gray?, you can give it a look.

Turns out I was right... In a strategically timed "endorsement" on Channel 8, Ms. Cheh persuasively made the case for Gray and against Fenty.  My only quibble with the timing of the endorsement is that coming after the devastating Washington Post poll indicating Gray is up 17 points with "likely voters", the "impact" of her endorsement seems a bit muted and could come off as a bit of "jumping on the bandwagon after it as already left the barn".  That said.... better late than never and what the endorsement may have lacked in timing it more than made up for it in effectiveness.  A look at her video presentation on the Gray website, and a viewing of her appearance on Channel 8 makes a convincing argument against Fenty.  She also has one of the best lines I think I've heard about Fenty's tenure:

Nicely put, Ms. Cheh and it is the most concise and spot-on summary of why we need Vince Gray as mayor and why Fenty has turned off a large section of DC voters.  The simple political fact is that you NEED to include (or make a good faith effort to try to include) all stakeholders in the "process," even if in the end you don't make a final decision that the special interests are happy with.  What the Fenty supporters don't seem to "get" and what Cheh has so correctly identified is that people don't resent Fenty for "making hard choices"... they resent him for making those choices in an arrogant, autocratic vacuum without consulting anyone outside of his inner circle or respecting the legitimate special interests and other local politicians enough to grant them the simple courtesy of letting them have their input in the process...

Fenty...  Was that really too much to ask?  Well, if you thought it was too much to ask, you will find out in about a week that you made a fatally flawed calculation.

What is so significant about this Cheh issue is how politically naive Fenty showed himself to be by openly and brazenly dismissing and insulting the representative from a ward that is one of his biggest strongholds.  As Cheh herself said, what was most shocking about the disintegration of her relationship with Fenty was that there were so many obvious points of agreement between the two of them that they should have been natural partners in the political process and the fact that he eschewed any input from Cheh and openly dismissed her shows how petty and politically tone-deaf Fenty really is.  In the end, Fenty's short-sighted  "me first" and "only i can get the credit" attitude had him figure that he could court the favor of Ward 3 constituents without making the effort to consult or share the credit with Cheh.

Fenty is a prideful fool.  And as it says in the Bible (Proverbs 16:18): "Pride goeth before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall..."

Hope the "landing" from your "fall" isn't too hard, Adrian.  Have you started packing your office yet?

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Note:  For a list of previous posts to the Unofficial Vince Gray for Mayor Blog click here.