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Beyond the initial "shock and horror", the media failed miserably with Brown. Perhaps it was his charm...Regardless, Silverman's former employers were, indeed, part of the problem.

As for race, etc., the DC Council is stuck with white legacies like Jack Evans (the developer's friend) and Jim Graham (whose erratic, often ineffectual style mirrors his mismanagement of Whitman Walker) and the soft racism of only focusing on crappy Black pols needs a correction.

If public funding would eliminate developer money and foster competitive races, I'd support it. OTOH, I'm too practical and skeptical to assume that anything (including David's pet "non-partisan" elections) would serve as a panacea. The best form of reform is competitive elections and it is neither an easy or linear path.

The discussion of Gray, etc, here misses something very important about him and his political experience...Gray's major govt experience was as director of social services for Sharon Pratt Kelly. Although different in origins and approach, Kelly was, in many ways, the proto-Fenty and her failure brought Barry back from the semi-dead. Kelly not only failed to reform things, but she (like Fenty) rolled into a cocoon and became impervious, if not paranoid, in the face of criticism. Gray ran a dept whose functions were largely under court supervision because of the Barry-I administration's mismanagement. It was his failure to make headway in getting out from under the courts rather than some dystopian fantasy about the Barry era that led me to reluctantly vote for Fenty, whose "reform" was often less than met the eye (case in point, Michele Rhee). Gray has proven to be the ineffectual leader he was during the Kelly era, which is pretty much what I expected. It takes a long time for political leadership develop and change, and this is likely to lag changes in DC's population, esp. given the transient nature of a big component of the population. Real reform means not only getting rid of people like Brown and Orange, but also people like Evans and Graham. And it's easy to forget that there was a generation of Black pols chaffing under the Barry administration's domination of politics in the 90s--the potential for change was there and undermining local control may actually have undermined the process of reform to some extent. Change isn't a linear process and DC is probably at least a decade away from really strong reformist leadership.

It's also helpful to put this in the context of the shortcomings of leadership in "tiffany" jurisdictions like MoCo. MoCo got rid of developer buddy Duncan (thanks to his higher ambition), only to get the visionless Leggett. Yes, the suburbs are no panacea, either.

by Rich on Jun 10, 2012 1:31 am • link • report