Fenty Might Sate Change-Hungry District

This city of ours is not generally thought of as a cutting-edge kind of place -- on the whole, we're cautious, even purposefully dull, in how we dress, speak and behave in public. But look at how we vote, and you'll see another story entirely: This is a town that regularly takes a flier on its leaders.

Washington's last three mayors -- Marion Barry, Sharon Pratt Dixon and Tony Williams -- were untraditional choices that required voters to swallow hard and take a big chance on someone who probably wouldn't have had a prayer of winning in most other big cities. Over more than two decades, District voters have chosen as their mayor a street rebel, a corporate executive with no political experience and a bow-tied accountant with all the charisma of a slice of toast.

After yesterday's face-off between Adrian Fenty and Linda Cropp in their only one-on-one debate before the Sept. 12 primary, the District is poised once again to bet on the candidate who seems to offer the most dramatic change.

On NewsChannel8, Fenty came off as young, green, unsure of his words and uncertain of which camera to look at. But he was by far the more energetic of the two front-runners, and his command of issues and his pledge to hold the government accountable went a long way toward overcoming any doubts that Cropp sought to sow.

Cropp, the D.C. Council chairman and a former school board member, has fallen into the classic trap that has ensnared politicians from Bob Dole to Al Gore: How can you present yourself as the agent of change and fresh ideas when you've been around for all the bad and ugly stuff for so many years?

Cropp used the word "record" 21 times in yesterday's debate. She said "leadership" eight times, along with assorted assertions of "experience" and "prepared."

Contrast that with Fenty's repeated use of "accountability" (eight times), "energy" and "vigor."

Cropp has painted herself into a corner from which she keeps attacking Fenty for exactly the things that make him so attractive to many voters -- his door-to-door campaigning, his obsessive attention to constituent e-mails, his effort to learn from what other big-city mayors are doing. What, exactly, is so awful about having a mayor who knows every cop on the beat, responds immediately to neighborhood problems, and collects and tests new ideas from across the country?

Is the job of mayor too big for governing by Blackberry, asked debate moderator Bruce DePuyt.

"I love this question," Fenty replied. What could the criticism possibly be? "You follow through too much? This is what big-city mayors do."

Cropp, apparently under instructions to try in every response to take Fenty down a notch, hit him again and again on the cases in which he dropped the ball in his legal practice. Cropp's hits, however, were anything but surgical; she rambled and never told viewers what she was actually talking about.

On most policy questions, Fenty and Cropp do not differ much. But the debate presented stark contrasts on an essential question -- the very definition of the job of mayor.