A Tax Rebel Triumphs With Low-Profile Tactics

"There was no campaign against it," Davis said. "The political leadership of Montgomery County should be embarrassed. They took him for granted."

County Executive Isiah Leggett defended his own efforts, which included funding a sample ballot warning against the measure and recording a robo-call that went out just before the election. But he admitted that more should have been done.

"The effort was not as vigorous as it should have been," Leggett (D) said. "Some people did not think this was that big a deal, maybe because this was Ficker and because he had been defeated in the past."

The amendment would require a unanimous vote of the County Council's nine members to exceed the limit on property tax revenue, rather than the current requirement of seven. Several voters, and even politicians, said they weren't even aware of the amendment before they saw the ballot, a departure from Ficker's usual high-volume approach.

"Where were all the yard signs?" Davis asked. "The most dangerous place to be on the planet is between Robin Ficker and a headline. Keeping his name out of it had to be calculated."

It was. Ficker, known more for bludgeoning his opponents than out-maneuvering them, employed some uncharacteristic dodging and weaving. He played down the yard signs and focused his door-to-door campaigning on areas that have been more Ficker-friendly in past elections. He passed out 60,000 fliers (with a "Vote Yes" message on one side and an ad for his realty firm on the other) in Germantown, Damascus, Poolesville and other up-county neighborhoods.

"I wanted to keep a lower profile," Ficker said.

It might have been the most subtle tactic in Ficker's career, during which he has more typically played the bull who sees the world as his china shop.

His legal life has included spats with the Maryland bar over his aggressive advertising and two formal suspensions for sloppy case-handling (the latest could be lifted next month). He's been a defendant at least 17 times, according to court records, in cases ranging from speeding to battery. (A 1996 battery charge, in which Flicker was accused of striking a pregnant woman during a traffic altercation, was dropped after a jury deadlocked in Ficker's favor.)

His personal life includes a divorce in which his then-wife sought, and then dropped, a protective order against him for "abusive and threatening behavior." And he was notorious at Washington Bullets games for his history of screaming nonstop abuse from his seat behind the opposing team's bench. When the team moved to the MCI Center and became the Wizards, Ficker's seats were moved far from the bench. He stopped attending.

Ficker attributes that striking résumé of scrapes and run-ins to his full-speed approach to all things.

"I'm always doing something, not just being a couch potato," he said. "Sometimes things don't go smoothly, but I'm out there. I'm competing in the arena."