See How He Runs

Fenty says he did not grow up dreaming about one day becoming mayor of his home town, and that rings true. Although he projects the confidence of a candidate in the lead, he does not seem like someone who has been groomed for political stardom. He is not a great orator, his sentences at times peppered with too many ahs and his thoughts stumbling from his mouth. His platform -- good schools, safe streets -- is not particularly visionary (although some would argue that his promise of a responsive government is by itself a utopian notion). He has no lyrical catchphrase, a la former presidential and vice presidential candidate John Edwards's "two Americas."

Even so, political handicappers had figured Fenty for a future mayoral bid after election night 2000, when he toppled Charlene Drew Jarvis, the Ward 4 council member for nearly 20 years, by waging an aggressive door-to-door campaign. The buzz grew louder as he built a reputation for delivering services to the residents of his ward, which covers much of Northwest Washington east of Rock Creek Park.

"It just snowballed," Fenty says, and now he describes himself as ready for the challenge. "No question. My energy level, my focus, the experience I've gained over the past six years . . . I've done the training."

Some of his colleagues on the D.C. Council are beside themselves that Fenty is leading in the mayoral race. He might be Mr. Constituent Service, they say, but he has shown little interest in or aptitude for the behind-the-scenes work of lawmaking. Running a multibillion-dollar government is not the same as running around delivering Supercans, one of his opponents snipes.

In late July, a Washington Post poll showed Fenty leading Linda Cropp, the current council chairman, by 10 percentage points among likely voters. Since then, she has largely abandoned her approach of running on her experience -- 16 years on the council and, before that, 10 years on the school board -- in favor of trying to knock Fenty off stride with a barrage of negative campaign ads. One calls him "reckless" for voting against a cap on government spending; another warned voters that Fenty's vote against last month's emergency crime bill "puts our safety at risk."

But if Fenty is sweating, it is because he's still out hustling for votes in the late summer heat.

His plan is to knock on doors until the polls close on primary day. He doesn't want there to be any doubt in voters' minds.

"They should know I'm tireless, and they should know I want it: I want to be the mayor," he said.

Lunch to Go

Fenty is cruising up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway toward Laurel for a Sunday afternoon mayoral candidates' forum at the Oak Hill juvenile detention center, where the District houses its youthful offenders on a dingy campus surrounded by rows of barbed wire. The youths are holding a straw poll on the mayor's race.

"The first time I visited it, I thought it was like something out of a horror movie," Fenty recalls. As he drives, he skips around the radio dial, sampling the selections on various hip-hop stations.

He bobs his head to the music while munching on McDonald's chicken strips that have been marinating for several hours in the back seat of his Ford Expedition. He washes them down with Glaceau Vitamin Water. (He drinks eight to nine 20-ounce bottles of the fruit-flavored water during long, hot days on the street.) Earlier that day he put in six hours with a canvassing team in Ward 7. After the forum he will rejoin the volunteers and knock on doors until dark. This would have to do for lunch.

On the drive back to the city, he is asked how he feels when he sees those kids at Oak Hill. "It makes me want to make this a city, a government, a community where all these kids would be successful high school students," he begins.