This is not Michael D. Brown.

The guy to the right is Michael A. Brown. He’s an at-large member of the D.C. Council and chairs the Housing and Workforce Development committee.

Now here is a photograph of Michael D. Brown, D.C.’s current Shadow Senator. He is running for an different at-large seat on the Council, the one currently held by Phil Mendelson.

There are several differences between the two men, obviously. One is black, the other is white. One’s middle initial is A., while the other’s is D. Finally, one is campaigning for office and the other isn’t. I’m not really sure how much more you’d need to tell the two apart. But after a couple of weeks where we laughed it off as just another crazy coincidence of the campaign season and just another Brown on the scene, it’s obviously much more than that.

At last night’s Vince Orange moon bounce cookout-o-rama (otherwise known as the Ward 5 straw poll) Michael D. Brown pulled a shocker, defeating both Mendelson and upstart challenger Clark Ray. D. Brown got 370 votes, opposed to Mendelson’s 350 and Ray’s 159, a pretty amazing total for a guy who has spent basically zero money, has very little in the form of a platform and only entered the race recently.

[Ed. note: According to TBD’s Sarah Larimer, there was a bit of a mixup at the straw poll last night. Mendelson’s vote total was read as 250, but he actually received 350. This post has been updated to reflect this figure.]