In 2 Wards, Democrats Go for Gray
Thursday, July 20, 2006; Page DZ02
Council member Vincent Gray (D-Ward 7) is stomping through the wards and right over Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3) in the race for council chairman, with two new endorsements by local Democratic committees.
Gray, who is in his first term, solidly won the endorsements of the Ward 1 and Ward 8 Democratic clubs, a feat that candidates for mayor, at-large council seats and shadow representative couldn't accomplish. And, unlike the real Sept. 12 Democratic primary, in which candidates need only a majority of the votes to win, both Democratic clubs require more for their endorsement: 60 percent in Ward 1 and two-thirds in Ward 8.
The ward endorsements often are an indication of how well a candidate will be able to get out the vote on election day.
"I feel really good about it," Gray said. "It demonstrates that we have a very viable campaign, and not just in one area of the city."
After hours of speeches and vote counting Saturday at the Washington Highlands Branch Library, Gray won the Ward 8 endorsement by a vote of 202 to 37. None of the mayoral candidates got enough votes to win. But council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D) received 137 votes, trouncing the four other major contenders -- 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 -- who together received just 114.
In Ward 1, the Democratic club voted only on the chairman and at-large races at a meeting Monday night in the Whitelaw building. With about 100 people voting, Gray captured 62 percent to Patterson's 29 percent, according to Katherine Boettrich of the Ward 1 Democrats.
Close, but No Cigar
The endorsement wars in the at-large race have been less definitive.
Lawyer A. Scott Bolden won the overwhelming majority of votes -- 148 to 77 -- in Ward 8 against incumbent Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), but Bolden missed the required two-thirds. In Ward 1, Bolden again edged out Mendelson, 43 percent to 41 percent, though not enough for the endorsement.
Supporters of both men pulled out calculators and used pencil and paper to make sure there would be no repeat of the debacle that forced the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club to rescind its July 10 endorsement of Mendelson. He had received 59.82 percent of the vote, just shy of the 60 percent. Club officials had rounded the vote up -- a no-no, according to Robert's Rules of Order, said Darrin Glymph , the club's treasurer.
Forum With Jailed Youths
Before the mayoral candidates could lay out their platforms at a Sunday forum, they had to pass through metal detectors and barbed wire and submit to pat-downs for contraband.
The site: Oak Hill Youth Center, the city's juvenile detention facility and jail in Laurel.
The audience: roughly 80 juvenile offenders, most of them black.
