Linda Cropp for Mayor

I've come full circle on Ms. Cropp. I started out not even considering her candidacy, now I intend to vote for her. I plan to do so because she has the best plan for improving DC public schools and is the best choice over Fenty.

Her skills are widely touted as a pragmatic consensus builder. This skill is needed in a city where racial and class tensions are simmering just beneath the surface, where the economic disparities are widening and where local control is often trumped by our Congressional overlords. A pragmatic eye for details is also needed to keep the city's bureaucratic infrastructure from lapsing into a dysfunctional cess pool. It improved under Williams but has a long way to go.

Fenty is an attractive candidate. He's handsome, energetic and has a bold vision for the city. His personal story is engaging. I shop at his parents' store. But how would he be at governing? The best his supporters can say is represented by this comment from Jim Graham in today's Post:

[Graham is] not sure how Fenty's vigor would translate into public policy. But he's certain Fenty would inject excitement into city government. "Part of the excitement is the unknown, right?"

Are we really willing to gamble our children's future on a government-as-amusement park lark? And this is the type of comment one hears from everyone supporting Fenty, even the Washington Post. Consider this, from a voter, also in today's Post article:

"Fenty has fresh ideas." Such as? "Well, I can't think of any right now."

The details of how Fenty's claim to fame on education -- the modernization act -- is illustrative. Fenty got the ball rolling, but it took the grown-ups on the City Council, especially Cropp, to make it happen.

Fenty's inner circle also includes Sam Skinner, a guy who has stirred racial tensions in the city and in my neighborhood. While Cropp has made a career of consensus building, Fenty is aligning himself with someone who inflames differences.

Cropp has to make up a lot of lost ground to win. She's around 10 points behind in the polls. The good news is that there are about 14 percent undecided. Hopefully Cropp will do well there. And, hopefully she is making a last minute appeal to Johns' voters. Marie Johns supporters are surely attracted to her because of her experience and CEO maturity. These voters are most certainly appalled by a Mayor Gee-Whiz-It'll-Be-Fun-Fenty. Cropps' experience should be an enticement for the Johns voters to abandon their doomed candidate to support Cropp to prevent the election of Fenty.