Colbert I. King on the risk to Mayor Fenty of questionable contracts

Here's hoping that Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) has absorbed the meaning of the close call experienced on Election Day by his political godfather, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. With his billions, a well-oiled campaign machine and supreme self-confidence, Republican-turned-independent Bloomberg narrowly won reelection against an underfunded Democratic challenger who was ignored by the White House and who ran with little organized party support or chance of winning.

If Fenty somehow missed the message from Manhattan, it's this: Money and a slick, professional campaign strategy can take an incumbent, even one as seasoned as Bloomberg, only so far; likability counts, too. And after years of Bloomberg as mayor, voters have begun to find him wanting.

New Yorkers, according to exit polls, were certainly put off by Bloomberg's rewriting of the term-limit law so he could run again. His extravagant campaign spending, swamping his opponent 14-to-1, didn't win him much applause, either. But it was the change in voter perception that helped erode his popularity.

As the New York Times reported, change could be heard in the words of voters: "Not so much visceral dislike as a sense that a once-admired politician had grown more distant and tetchy, and too filled with self-regard." Said voter Gerni Oster, 34, on Election Day, "I think that Mayor Bloomberg is too egotistical and arrogant for me to vote for at this point."

District of Columbia, sound like anybody we know?

Ironically, Bloomberg had a record to run on: improved schools, less crime, better public services. But he and his outsized ego got in the way of his accomplishments. Adrian Fenty seems headed in the same direction.

Earlier this year, I reported on a level of dissatisfaction with the mayor among residents that was hard to ignore ["His Highness the Mayor," May 16]. Fenty's demeanor seemed to have changed, I wrote. There was a sense of self-importance not seen before his election. "Arrogance" was the word that came to mind.

That more than six-month-old concern remains my worry today: that having won every voting precinct in his race for mayor, Fenty has come to regard himself as never wrong, invulnerable and beyond accountability. That could prove politically fatal.

A year ago, I wouldn't have written those words, perhaps because the flaws weren't so apparent. True, the 2008 elections did raise the possibility of Fenty inheriting a council majority that could pose a threat to his agenda [ "A High-Stakes Election for Mid-Term Fenty," Nov. 1, 2008].

The replacement of Carol Schwartz with Michael Brown portended an anti-Fenty cabal on the council that could imperil his education agenda, program initiatives and spending decisions. My initial reaction, however, was to chalk up the expected change in the Fenty-council relationship to politics. The consequence, so I thought at the time, might be a council strong enough to face him down.

Now, there's the possibility that it could get worse for Fenty, and in a way that Michael Bloomberg never encountered in New York.

The $82 million in government contracts given out by the D.C. Housing Authority to managers, contractors and subcontractors with personal and political ties to Fenty carry a whiff of something that is disagreeable to the nose.