Photo used with permission under a Creative Commons license with mar is sea Y

There is one way to make sure all your friends show up for your tedious re-election fundraiser: Host it on your birthday, the way Mayor Adrian Fenty celebrated his 39th. While the strategy may add to the campaign coffers and speed through the birthday cake, it’s kind of a scumbag move. Friends would be right to protest, or at least to mutter under their breaths while they’re signing yet another supportive check. Particularly when Mayor Fenty’s invitation whines about how he should have a totally awesome mansion but doesn’t.

That said, no one expects a bona fide protest to break out at even the most trying of birthday celebrations. WAMU reports that that’s exactly what happened on Saturday evening, when some 20 members of the Take Back DC coalition assembled for a candle-light vigil in the freezing cold. As the audio recorded outside the party reveals, the candle-light vigil sounded more like a picket-line strike, perhaps reflecting the makeup of the coalition — which includes the American Federation of Government Employees and D.C.’s largest taxi union.

Though organizers of the protest sought to highlight diminished union powers and increased privatization of social services under Mayor Fenty, it stands to reason to ask the protesters which attendees at Hizzoner’s own birthday they thought were vulnerable to persuasion. Can’t imagine that many other people beyond Fenty’s closest friends and most ardent supporters witnessed the protest in Foxhall on a Saturday night. The tactic notwithstanding, there’s a principle at stake here, and that is the inviolability of the birthday party. Protesting someone’s birthday might be the one thing more despicable than turning a birthday into a fundraiser. Do not bring a soap box to a birthday party, unless it is wrapped.