A Push to Put Government to Work

The family bought a rowhouse in Mount Pleasant, then a multi-ethnic village of likeminded idealists, and opened Fleet Feet, an Adams Morgan running store. Later, Fenty majored in economics and English at Oberlin College.

In 1996, Fenty earned a law degree at Howard University, where he met and married fellow student Michelle Cross. They have 6-year-old twin boys. They settled in Crestwood in 1997. Within months, Fenty launched his political career, running for the advisory neighborhood commission and organizing the ward for mayoral candidate and then-council member Kevin P. Chavous.

Chavous is supporting Cropp. He declined to discuss Fenty, who worked as his legislative counsel, until after the primary.

Shawn remembers the Chavous campaign as an awakening for his brother. It also introduced Fenty to public speaking. Shawn remembers watching his brother, to this day an awkward orator, nervously introduce Chavous at a campaign event.

"It was so intense. There wasn't anything graceful about it at all," Shawn said, laughing. "But what really came across was his determination to get through this."

Chavous was the early front-runner in the 1998 mayoral race but lost to Williams, a newcomer to city politics who entered the race at the last minute. That campaign taught Fenty two things: Start early, and reach out to the regular people.

In 2000, when no one emerged to challenge Jarvis, Fenty decided to put those lessons to the test. The political establishment was incredulous. At One Judiciary Square, where Fenty was working on the council's education committee, Fenty remembers a key Williams aide laughing in his face.

"What can you say when somebody laughs in your face and walks away?" he said. "You just keep going on with your day."

From the moment Fenty took office, he dedicated himself to his constituents, including those who had supported Jarvis. "No permanent enemies," he said. Outfitted with a cellphone -- later, two BlackBerries -- Fenty was always on call.

He also dove headlong into council business, pushing for more funding for affordable housing, the closure of the outdated Oak Hill juvenile detention center and, perhaps his most significant achievement, a landmark bill that provides $1 billion over the next 10 years to modernize crumbling schools.

Other council members scoffed at the schools bill, calling Fenty's financing mechanism irresponsible. But the billion-dollar figure captured the imagination of school activists, who were furious about the vast sums that had been approved for a new baseball stadium. Within months, the council came up with a new funding scheme and passed Fenty's bill.

"What he's good at is giving voice to an issue," said Gregory McCarthy, a Cropp supporter who served until recently as the mayor's deputy chief of staff for policy and legislation. "Be it school modernization or child-care subsidies or the Smoke Free Act or capital repairs at UDC, Fenty may not have invented the legislation . . . but he has a canny sense of how to give voice to people and get people to rally around the cause."

Fenty's populism terrifies some local business leaders, who say he has shown no talent for making tough but unpopular decisions. What would he cut, they ask, if tax revenue continues to level off?

"It's not that we know exactly what's going to happen; it's that we're worried about what's going to happen," said lawyer Max Berry, Cropp's campaign co-chairman. If Fenty wins, he said, "I'll pray for him that he surprises me immensely."

Fenty said he's ready to try. "One of my philosophies is, set the bar high. And we're going to start early," he said. "You've got to come in with guns blazing."