Fenty Facing First Competitor in 2010 Election?

Even though the talk of someone taking on Mayor Adrian Fenty in the 2010 mayoral contest has been mostly idle chatter to date, a familiar face might be ready to take him on.

Via reader IMGoph, The Brookland Heartbeat is reporting that Council member and perpetual candidate Michael Brown (I-At Large) gave about as close to a stump speech as possible without being a declared candidate during an appearance at a Ward 5 ANC meeting in April. In a follow-up interview, Brown fanned the flames just a little more, saying, “It’s no secret. People talk about it all the time that there is going to be a race between me and Adrian.”

In his speech, Brown criticized the direction of the city, arguing that it has become a place of haves and have nots. He also went after Fenty and D.C. Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee for their lack of transparency in fixing the city's schools. Thinking back on when I first interviewed him during his longshot mayoral run in 2006, he's sounding out many of the same themes.

Should he run, what would his chances look like? Well, Fenty's already built up a sizable war chest, announcing earlier this year that he had mined some of the city's biggest donors for $2 million in campaign funds. Then again, Fenty's image as a populist reformer has dulled somewhat since he swept the city's 142 districts three years ago. Persistent complaints about executive secrecy and souring relations with the D.C. Council have left Fenty with far fewer allies in the media and local political circles, offering Brown an perfect opportunity to claim the "outsider" title in a run against the sitting mayor.

Brown has lost far more elections than he has ever won, though, so his supporters will need to hope that he's learned a lesson or two from past electoral drubbings. And since he's currently registered as an Independent on the council, he faces one of two choices -- re-register as a Democrat and challenge Fenty in the primary (thus forcing him to give up his At-Large seat on the council and confirm accusations that he only switched party affiliations to get himself elected last year) or remain an Independent and face the much harder task of taking on Fenty in the general election (which sees far fewer voters). Good stump speech or not, these are things that Brown will seriously have to consider. And let's not dismiss Fenty out of hand -- he's still a relatively popular guy that could appeal to people's sense of continuity to request that he be given a second term to wrap up his ambitious plans, especially with city schools.

But he just might be the dark horse that the "Anyone but Fenty" crowd has been looking for. And it would make for a great storyline, too. Both he and Fenty hail from Ward 4, both are lawyers, both are relatively young, both have twin sons and neither has any hair. We're crossing our fingers for this to happen, if only for the endless possibilities in media coverage and commentary.

Image of Brown's 2006 mayoral run.