Photo by Kyle Gustafson.

It’s only been two days since Mayor Adrian Fenty conceded in his bid for re-election, and both inside and outside the District, political reporters and analysts of all stripes are dissecting how a guy with almost $5 million to burn and an enviable set of results to tout could have fared so poorly. The City Paper’s Mike Madden argued yesterday that school reform killed Fenty’s chances at a second term, while the Post’s Mike DeBonis argues that Fenty’s vaunted Big Green Machine never became the very political operation that big city mayors use to consolidate power.

When we sat down with At-Large Council candidate Clark Ray before the election, he offered another intriguing take on why Fenty was faring so badly against Vince Gray. Namely, he said, it was the very personal connections Fenty made with voters during his 2006 mayoral bid — when he claimed to have knocked on virtually every door in the city — which served as his undoing this year.

“I think residents of this city to a big leap of faith and invested a lot in Adrian Fenty four years ago,” said Ray, who both worked on Fenty’s 2006 campaign and served as his director of Parks and Recreation until April 2009. “They invested in him personally. There was a time when Adrian had three Blackberries on him, and, as a director, if Mrs. Jones thought that the AC at Lamond-Riggs was not working, she’d email Adrian directly, and he’d call me to get it fixed. He was that involved.”