See How He Runs

Fenty says his volunteers have visited every house in D.C. and he's personally been to more than half of them: "Door-to-door is the purest form of political campaigning." (Andrea Bruce -- The Washington Post)

He is asked to consider the question not from the perspective of a candidate, but as a young black man. Could he, like too many black boys, have ended up in Oak Hill?

"Nope," he says without hesitation. He then tells a story about how when he was in college an acquaintance suggested they do a little drug dealing on the side.

"I remember thinking, 'What would my dad think if I got caught doing something like that?' What a letdown something like that would be for him," Fenty says.

Fenty describes his father, Phillip, as "the ultimate lead-by-example type. . . . He doesn't use a lot of words." When Fenty and his two brothers, Shawn, 40, and Jesse, 34, were small, his father stayed home and took care of them while his mother, Jan, worked as a schoolteacher. By the time the boys were teenagers, Phil and Jan Fenty had opened Fleet Feet, an athletic-shoe store in Adams Morgan.

Adrian Fenty remembers his parents working endless hours to get the store established. He and his brothers worked alongside them after school and on weekends.

Does he miss spending time with his own 6-year-old twins, Matthew and Andrew, while he's so consumed with his mayoral campaign?

"I'm not with them as much, but I make sure I know where they are and everything they're doing," he says. Several days ago, Fenty says, he had been a guest speaker at the baseball camp attended by his sons.

The coach asked Fenty what his word of the day was.

"I told them," Fenty recalls, "my word for the day was 'hard work.' "

Fenty's Colleagues

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Mention Fenty's name and several of his colleagues on the D.C. Council roll their eyes, snicker, shake their heads. He's a showboat. A camera hog. He takes care of his ward, they argue, but he doesn't take care of business inside city hall.

The thing that most drives them crazy, they say, is that during council work sessions, where members meet behind closed doors to debate important legislation, Fenty has very little, if anything, to say, instead typing on his BlackBerry. It especially piques Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who has on occasion publicly upbraided Fenty for being inattentive. He said he likes Fenty personally but does not think he would be a good mayor.

"We all like [Cropp] and I can see us working together very closely," Evans says. "With Adrian, I can't say that won't happen, but it has not happened to date. He would have to completely change or find himself at odds with the council." Evans, along with at least two other council members, has endorsed Cropp.