D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray kicked off his official mayoral campaign yesterday with a rally at Carnegie Library that sought to answer a question that has dogged him since he announced his intent to run last month: why’s he running?

In his speech, Gray worked to reintroduce himself — and reintroduce incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty — to voters. He peppered his standard bio with references to leadership and, critically, references to the conduct expected with leadership. Gray drove the character theme hard, directly and indirectly, in an effort to reinforce the notion of Mayor Fenty as a prickly and ungracious leader — a picture that has already taken hold in the minds of the incumbent’s critics.

More surprising is the pivot Gray used to introduce his platform: public education. It’s an issue that voters can expect Fenty to run on, following the conclusion of contract negotiations between D.C. Public Schools and the Washington Teachers Union. (Whether that deal is in fact implemented remains to be seen, of course, so things could change. If it turns out that it was CFO Natwar Gandhi’s miscalculation that now threatens to derail the ratification of the new contracts, it would not be Mayor Fenty’s fault.) Gray says that jobs are the key to solving crime and that public education is the key to creating jobs, meaning that he intends to take on Mayor Fenty on one of his signature issues.

More clips showing Gray’s full speech beyond the jump and the text of the speech is here.