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Is Leggett Just Too Likable?
Leggett talks with Bob Resnik and Lou Schap during a neighborhood campaign get-together in Bethesda.
(By Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)
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Dejected, he slumped out of the office, not knowing what to do. He didn't have enough money for the bus home, and he didn't have a place to sleep or anyplace to go. So he turned around and walked back into the office. Please, he began, trying to be as polite as possible.
Again, he was turned down. He went back a few more times during the day, until finally the assistant business manager took pity. "I am sick and tired of seeing your face," Leggett remembered her saying.
The woman, Betty Johnson, who still works at Southern, said she doesn't remember the details. But she did recall giving Leggett a job "on buildings and grounds."
Politics Then and Now
When Leggett first ran for County Council in 1985, his campaign was markedly different from the one he is running today. Now he is showcasing his childhood poverty, and pictures of him are displayed prominently on campaign literature.
Then, he refused to distribute pictures of himself.
He wanted voters to see his experience -- decorated Vietnam veteran, White House fellow, first in his class at Howard law -- not his skin color, said Bruce Adams, who ran on a slate of candidates with Leggett that year and is now supporting him.
The low point of his council tenure came in 1991, when a former aide brought sexual harassment charges against him. Leggett refused to settle with the woman, who was found to have multiple-personality disorder, and a Montgomery jury took 90 minutes to clear him. But the accusations embarrassed him and cost the county several hundred thousand dollars in legal fees.
Shortly before the trial, he had quadruple-bypass surgery. These days, he said, his health is fine, and he plays tennis Sunday mornings before church.
Leggett has been trumpeting some of the legislation he helped pass while on the council.
Silverman's campaign has seized on an issue that Leggett steered clear of: the intercounty connector. Leggett says he supports the roadway. But at a roast to mark his retirement from the council in 2003, Douglas M. Duncan, the current county executive, who is staying neutral in the race, joked that Leggett is "the guy who owned property along the ICC route just so he wouldn't have to vote on the ICC," according to a video of the event.
More recently, Silverman's campaign released an e-mail from Anne Ambler, chair of the county's Sierra Club chapter, which said Leggett "at least promises not to pursue the ICC if we can elect a gov who will reevaluate the transportation priorities."
Ambler confirmed that she had written the e-mail, but she said she was merely trying to dissuade someone from voting for Robert Fustero, another Democratic candidate for county executive, who is considered a long shot. She said it is "wishful thinking" that Leggett would take a stance against the intercounty connector. Still, Ambler hopes he will change his mind.
Staff writer Ann E. Marimow and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
