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postlocal.com Watch the mayoral debate live today


Watch the debate between D.C. Mayor Adrian A. Fenty


and challenger Vincent C. Gray, sponsored by Washington Post Live, at noon, streamed live on WashingtonPostLive.com. And for more on the mayoral race, go to postlocal.com


fenty from A1


that perception through a combi- nation of shoe-leather campaign- ing, force of personality and ad- vertising, knocking on thousands ofdoors tomeet voters andspend- ingmorethan$1millionontelevi- sion commercials. He has tried to build his campaign around the accomplishments of his hard- charging schools chancellor, Mi- chelle A. Rhee, whom he credits


EZ SU


KLMNO Fenty ends attempt to woo targeted voters


withimproving test scores. Yet his summer-long strategy


hasn’t worked. The Post’s poll found that Rhee is hurting the mayor’s campaign as much as she’s helping it. Moreover, Fenty has struggledespecially towinthe support of black residents, who are expected to make up at least half of the primary electorate and whointhePostpoll saidtheywere overwhelmingly likely to support Gray.


Increasingly alarmed over the


directionof thecampaign, someof Fenty’s friends and supporters have in recent days urged him to shifthis strategy,perhapsembrac- ing an approach that redoubles efforts to generate more enthusi- asmamong his base of support, in the white community and more affluent areas of the city. The Post poll showed that Fenty is strug- gling towin support fromAfrican Americans.


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 Many Fenty supporters are


holding out hope that he has enough time to rebound if he sharpenshis appeal. “There is a lot of positive things


about his record that can be brought to bear in a little more focused way,” said Max Brown, a Fenty supporter who managed formermayorAnthonyWilliams’s 1998 campaign. “The young peo- ple, who traditionally haven’t turned out in big numbers — the mayor has to make sure those folks turn out and are receptive to hismessage.” Yet, Fenty said Tuesday that he intends to focus on a citywide


campaign to win support in all neighborhoods, not just fromspe- cific voters in specific neighbor- hoods. “I’ve never run a campaign like


that,”Fenty said. “Every vote is the same. . . .They all addup.” At the debate, Fenty plans to


reach out to undecided voters by talking about his experiences as a public schools student and ex- plore his human side by speaking about himself as a father. He also aims to challenge Gray’s ethics andhonesty,his advisers said. For his part,Graywill continue


to hammer away at the mayor as he has since he launched his cam- paign, arguing that he will bring “mature, seasoned, broad leader- ship to the city.” Yet with early voting already underway,Gray ac- knowledged Tuesday he still has not rolledoutpartofhiscampaign platform.


Winning the Democratic pri-


maryhasalwaysbeentantamount towinning the general election in the District, and some of Fenty’s biggest challenges are in the vote- rich, overwhelmingly black work- ing- and middle-class dominant neighborhoods that form a resi- dential crescent stretching from roughly Rock Creek Park to Min- nesota Avenue SE. Nearly half of allDemocratic votes in2006came from wards 4, 5 and 7. Fenty and Gray are about evenlymatched in Ward4,butGrayoverwhelmsFen- ty 3 to 1 in Ward 5 and 6 to 1 in Ward 7, according to the new Post poll. Thosewards cast three times more ballots in 2006 than did Democratic voters in Ward 3, where Fenty now leads Gray by a marginof 51 to 38percent. “We believe ifwe get our voters


to the polls, there is no way the mayor canwin,” saidAdamRubin- son, Gray’s campaign manager. “Theonlywaywecanpossiblylose is if we are complacent and don’t get out our vote. . . . The math is justnot there.” BillLightfoot,Fenty’scampaign


STOCK UP & SAVE is back.


chairman,countersthatFentystill believes he will wage a superior get-out-the-vote effort. On Mon- day, the first day of early voting, the campaign had about 20 buses to take voters to the polls. “We’ve identified thousands of people to get themout to vote,”he said. On Sunday, to respond to The


Post’s poll, Fenty held a news con- ference at United Medical Center inWard 8, a decisionmeant to be symbolicofaccomplishmentseast of the Anacostia River. Minutes later, he veered off message to attend a news conference to de- fend what he called “the First Amendment rights”ofAnwar “Big G” Glover, who was suspended from his job at WKYS for talking abouthisendorsementof themay- or onthe air. OnMonday,heheldanon-cam-


paign news conference at H.D. Woodson High School in Ward 7, which highlighted the $103mil- lionconstructionproject inGray’s ward.On Tuesday, hewas inWard 8 to cut a ribbon on Yes! Organic market. And on Wednesday, the Fenty campaignwill launch an ad on radio stations with mostly- white audiences. VeteranDemocraticpollsterPe-


ter Brodnitz, who is not affiliated with either campaign, said it would be highly unusual for an incumbent to overcome a double- digit deficit in the polls with just two weeks until Election Day. But Brodnitz said he still sees a poten- tial opening for Fenty if he can make the last twoweeks about the future of the city instead of about himself. “I think some voters are just


now starting to tune in. . . . If you can make it a referendum on the city instead of a referendum on how you feel about Fenty, then he can win,” said Brodnitz, noting that The Post poll showed most Democratic voters thinkthe city is heading inthe rightdirection. Mo Elleithee, Gray’s senior


strategist, said the chairman will try to position himself at the de- bate as the “the bigger leader.” “Vince has got to be able to


make it clearwherehis attacks are inaccurate and sort of rise above that.” Although Gray advisers stress


that they are not taking anything for granted, the chairmanat times appears to be settling into the role of the front-runner. On Tuesday, he held a news conference to sup- portcouncilmemberPhilMendel- son(D-AtLarge),whotrailedchal- lenger Michael D. Brown in The Post’spoll. But Gray still hasn't fulfilled


promises to release a detailed fis- cal policy and public safety agen- da.


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“We are working hard, and we You’ll get $10 offwhenyou


are going to release our public safety papers,” Gray said. “As a matter of fact, we take it so seri- ously,we continue toreviewit and make some changes to it.” craigt@washpost.com stewartn@washpost.com


Polling director JonCohen and assistant polling analystKyleDropp contributed to this report.


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