Candidates Warned Against Empty Talk
Thursday, June 1, 2006; Page DZ02
The five Democratic mayoral candidates who vowed to spend an extra $1 billion on affordable housing and youth services without raising taxes had better start digging for change in the sofas at the John A. Wilson Building. The Washington Interfaith Network is prepared to "punish" the next mayor if he or she fails to make good on that promise, perhaps by pushing for a recall election, said lead organizer Martin Trimble .
At an unusual forum last week, council Chairman Linda W. Cropp , council members Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4) and Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5), former Verizon executive Marie C. Johns and lobbyist Michael A. Brown stood before a crowd of more than 800 WIN faithful and agreed to push the group's agenda if elected.
As a nonprofit organization, WIN cannot endorse any candidate. But it can put more than 400 volunteers on the streets in an effort to boost turnout in 45 targeted precincts in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary, a tactic designed to produce a show of political force that would put the next mayor on notice, Trimble said.
If the victor fails to follow through on the promises made last week, the nonprofit group will strike back, Trimble warned, much as it did in 2003, when it lobbied to block a pre-financing package for the city's proposed baseball stadium unless officials agreed to add a sizable neighborhood investment fund.
That incident should be "politics lesson No. 1 for the next mayor," Trimble said.
Although WIN is a coalition built largely of churches, its tactics are hardly pastoral. Part of the Industrial Areas Foundation, an international group founded by the late Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky , it is devoted to the principles of power and social justice.
Trimble, who is trying to put together a similar group in Northern Virginia, tells potential acolytes to go to Union Station and study the quote inscribed on the statue of A. Philip Randolph , the late labor leader who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.
"At the banquet table of life, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take and keep what you can hold," it says. "If you can't take anything, you won't get anything. And if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization."
Trimble said the nonprofit group is "not Pollyannaish about the promises made Monday night. What all those candidates were thinking is: 'I don't want anyone talking negatively about me on their doorstep.' But I don't care what the promises are. You have to hold them accountable. And you have to have the power to do that."
A Polling Enigma
Employment lawyer Jonathan Puth was enjoying the Memorial Day weekend when a pollster called not once, but twice, to gauge his support for an initiative that would outlaw same-sex marriage if approved by D.C. voters in November.
The problem? There is no such initiative on the ballot in November.
