Think D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is used to getting booed by now? more ›

Second-tier candidates have a long history swinging elections one way or another. Witness the accusations lobbed at Ralph Nader to this day over his taking vital votes from Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. more ›

It's only a Facebook wall post, but the context here makes this just too funny. more ›

Looks like there was a tiny bit of drama at this weekend's Ward 8 Democrats mayoral forum. The event, which marked the first straw poll of the 2010 campaign season, featured seven candidates, including incumbent Adrian Fenty, who we hear got booed by a significant portion of the crowd. But the real brouhaha took place during the straw poll, as WAMU's Patrick Madden reports. Previously registered Ward 8 voters went for D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray by a healthy margin, but toward the end of voting, a troop of younger Fenty supporters with freshly filled out voter registration cards tipped the scale for Fenty. more ›

It's not hard to find someone who's frustrated that District residents still don't have full voting rights. But no one is as willing to act on that frustration as Doug Sloan, it seems. more ›

The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics is tweeting updates this morning as 2010 candidates stop by on the first day to pick up nominating petitions. more ›

Over at WCP's Housing Complex this morning, Lydia DePillis correctly notes that despite accepting a speaking engagement at an upcoming D.C. Chamber of Commerce luncheon, erstwhile maybe-mayoral candidate Don Peebles hasn't been heard from in a month, leading most local politics watchers to ... pretty much forget about him. This guy can't still be thinking about running for mayor this late in the game, can he? more ›

Back in the day, if you really wanted to make your point in the political arena, you'd march a crowd over to the office of your local elected official and demand that they do or not do something. Or you'd get your supporters to flood their office with calls, faxes or emails. These days, you just need a lot of folks with a few minutes and a Facebook page. more ›

Get ready for a lot more orange in your life, D.C. more ›

Those pesky Save Our Safety Net folks (the same ones who got several D.C. Council members to put on superhero capes last week) got up in D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray's face with a camera during a lobbying push this morning. You've got to admire their moxie. more ›

Though the District's mayoral campaign is still relatively sleepy, the next few months promise a number of opportunities for the candidates to meet face-to-face against each other, as civic associations and other organizations line up to host forums and debates. On Wednesday we received word of what looks like the first such forum of the season, to be co-hosted by the Cleveland Park Citizens Association, Foxhall Community Citizens Association, and the Palisades Citizens Association on June 3. Mayor Adrian Fenty, D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray and former TV reporter Leo Alexander have each been invited to present their visions for the District at the event. more ›

Fresh from DCist's inbox, At-large D.C. Council member and Council Chair candidate Kwame Brown has sent out his official Earth Day message, and it's ... Twitter! Brown, who has been active on Twitter for a few months now, calls for "people across the world to send out 24,860 tweets, a number equal to circumference of the planet, in honor of Earth Day." We're going to assume that's 24,860 people sending one tweet each, and not 24,860 per person. more ›

Looks like ANC 1C chair Bryan Weaver's previously tentative campaign for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat is set to become official. Weaver will join the Democratic primary race alongside former school board member Jeff Smith, both of whom are vying to unseat incumbent Jim Graham. An email went out to supporters today announcing a formal campaign kickoff event set for Saturday: more ›

DCist is unsure what the political statement behind this reconfiguring of a Fenty campaign sign might be. Twitter user nathan42nathan sent in this image, noting that he spotted it on the 1800 block of Kalorama Rd. NW. Nathan hypothesizes that it's somehow related to the Gumby universe, but that strikes us as wrong. Gumby's best friend was Pokey, and he also palled around with a yellow dinosaur named Prickle. But there is no Gumby-related character named Bendy. Gumby exhibited the characteristics of being bendy, certainly. Perhaps this is a reflection of Adrian Fenty's remarkable level of physical fitness? Because it can't be a commentary on his willingness to bend in the political arena. In that sense, Fenty is resolutely un-bendy. more ›

As promised, real estate mogul Don Peebles appeared on The Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi this afternoon, but he declined to make an announcement on whether or not he will enter the 2010 mayoral race. more ›

Between the DCPS contract and ensuing is there or isn't there a surplus drama, the long-awaited testimony of Sinclair Skinner, the resurrection of the D.C. voting rights bill, and the mayoral campaign shifting into high gear, it's been a busy week for local politics. So busy, in fact, that one man who may yet still be about to step into the 2010 election fray has been almost forgotten: R. Donahue Peebles. more ›

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty opened his re-election campaign headquarters over the weekend, and this morning he was out with his team on the sidewalks of Logan Circle, doing that patented Fenty campaign thing: shaking hands, picking up babies and asking D.C. residents for their votes. more ›

Ward 2 D.C. Council member Jack Evans is officially running for Council Chair, but there's nothing official about a Twitter account that popped up Wednesday, which was, at least for a time, presumed to be a part of his campaign. more ›

As residents and city officials grapple with one of the deadliest crimes ever in the District, one local candidate was quick to use Tuesday night's mass shooting on South Capitol Street as part of his campaign for elected office. more ›

The expected match-up between D.C. Council members Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Kwame Brown (D-At-large) for council chair appears to be official. WTOP reported earlier this morning that both Evans and Brown have said they plan to run. more ›

About 100 supporters gathered at the Franklin D. Reeves Municipal Center Tuesday afternoon to watch D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray file his paperwork to enter the 2010 mayoral contest. Gray submitted the requisite signatures at approximately 2:20 p.m. more ›

With word leaking out that D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray will be running against Mayor Adrian Fenty in September's Democratic primary, we've finally got a mayoral race to speak of. And now that the identity of Fenty's competition is clear, the question becomes how he'll run. more ›

Both NewsChannel 8 and the Washington City Paper are reporting that D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray will announce this week that he will run for mayor against Adrian Fenty. more ›

This weekend may be decisive in the District's thus far muted 2010 mayoral race, as D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray (D-Ward 7) and multimillionaire developer Don Peebles reportedly plan to meet one more time to hammer out which of the two of them will challenge Mayor Adrian Fenty in the September primary. While they've met before and we've surely heard our fair share of hints and rumors as to which one of them would run, Gray publicly announced this week that the decision would be made in the coming days. more ›

Putting aside this latest, ludicrous development, it's basically crickets out there when it comes to the District mayoral race. According to the most recent financial reports submitted to the Office of Campaign Finance, Mayor Adrian Fenty's got $3.3 million sitting in the bank (with a campaign total so far of $3.9 million). His two declared challengers, Leo Alexander and Sulaimon Brown, have just $2,628.84 combined -- Brown has $27.84 of that, Alexander the remainder. Even adding three zeros to the end of that wouldn't get them within half-a-million of Fenty's current bankroll. Of course, well-funded candidates have been known to be beat by scrappy underdogs, but so far no one underdog is attracting much citywide attention -- much less any excitement. If this isn't a big kick in the ass that someone serious needs to step up -- lest the actual election be a mere formality -- we don't know what is. more ›

Oh dear sweet lord. Politico's Kiki Ryan reports that fliers advertising a possible mayoral run by alleged White House crasher Carlos Allen are popping up around town.

Allen's attorney, A. Scott Bolden, confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that it is "an accurate document." more ›

At-large D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown (I) on Tuesday came close to announcing he will run for mayor against Adrian Fenty in the November regular election. Brown made his comments during an appearance on NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt on News Channel 8. more ›

Looks like a grand jury will soon hand down additional charges against former Jim Graham staffer Ted Loza, D.C. Wire reports. Loza was indicted on bribery charges last fall after he allegedly accepted $1,500 in cash and other favors and trips from a taxicab lobbyist. No word yet on what the new charges might look like, just that we should expect them in the "next two to four weeks." more ›

No commentary needed. more ›

Michael Neibauer and Bill Myers filed a two-fer today on the racial divide over D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, noting in separate stories that black residents have soured on the guy, while whites are still, for the most part, behind him. That much has been evident since Sunday, though, when the Washington Post released its latest poll. So what's new here? For one, they offer that white support alone could still be enough to see Fenty re-elected. Well sure, but really we're burying the lede here: if you read nothing else in either of these stories, read this quote, on Fenty's personality problem:

"Arrogance" is a common refrain among many of Fenty's critics. Many cite the city's spiraling unemployment and then immediately contrast it with a mayor who squabbled over baseball tickets with the D.C. Council and who had a special heater installed at a public pool so his afternoon workouts could be more comfortable. more ›