Over the last month, the safe assumption in District political circles was that the two At-large seats on the D.C. Council would be going Brown-squared come November 4 — current Council member Kwame Brown would keep his seat and Democrat-turned-Independent Michael Brown would finally get elected to something. But things have recently gotten just a little more interesting.

According to a late-September poll, Michael Brown was leading write-in Republican candidate Carol Schwartz for the second seat, 33 percent to 25 percent, while Statehood Green David Schwartzman and Republican Patrick Mara claimed 10 percent and 7 percent of the vote, respectively. Brown hasn’t had a particularly great last few weeks, though, potentially eating into his support. Beyond a number of annoying campaign tactics, the D.C. Republican Party has been hammering at Brown by sending out periodic press releases criticizing his platform (“Michael Brown Wants to Keep D.C. Inmates Closer to D.C.” is a personal favorite). And today the City Paper’s Loose Lips digs up a business dispute involving Brown — another in a growing list of court actions against the perennial candidate that can’t help inspire confidence.

Mara, on the other hand, is doing pretty well for himself these days. On top of passing a picture with Mayor Adrian Fenty off as a formal endorsement, Mara was actually endorsed by Council member David Catania (I-At Large). He also picked up the Post’s endorsement today, which could go a long way in convincing the Democratic-heavy District that maybe having a Republican like Mara in office isn’t such a bad thing. Then again, the Post’s lame reasoning behind supporting Mara – that the Home Rule Charter’s asinine rule requiring a non-Democrat to hold one of the At-large seats should somehow be revered – is pretty easy to see through.

So how might election day play out? Schwartz is still plenty popular with the overall electorate, but she’s also a write-in candidate, and without the benefit of a really hard hitting, lengthy write-in movement, it’ll be tough for her to pull it out. That leaves Brown and Mara, who are both actually on the ballot, to fight it out for the seat. Unless…they split the vote and let Schwartzman sneak in with a super-minority share of the votes. This is about as close as the Statehood Greens will have gotten to elected office in quite a while, so they should be milking the Brown-Mara conflict for all it’s worth.

Photo by mosley.brian