StickWithANose

Back in June, I noted that the growing un-popularity of D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee among Fenty’s political base posed a serious risk to his re-election campaign, and I also noted that the oligarchs were weighing in with a threat to pull their funding from the DCPS experiment if their candidate didn’t win. It appears as though those threats are having no effect as the blowback from Fenty’s and Rhee’s authoritarian policies continues to mount. For more, let’s turn an amazingly bad piece of reporting from the Washington Post…

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is foundering in his reelection bid against his chief opponent, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, despite a widespread sense that the city is heading in the right direction, according to a new Washington Post poll.

With early voting beginning Monday in the Sept. 14 primary, Gray is clearly ahead, leading Fenty 49 to 36 percent among all Democratic voters surveyed. Gray’s advantage swells to 17 points, 53 to 36 percent, among those most likely to vote in the primary.

Okay, note the contradiction set up in the lede. Fenty is falling behind “despite a widespread sense that the city is heading in the right direction”. How can this be? Well…

Although most of those Democrats polled credit the mayor with a record of accomplishment and say he brought needed change to the District, many doubt his honesty, his willingness to listen to different points of view and his ability to understand their problems. The criticisms are especially deep-seated among African Americans, who are likely to make up a majority of primary voters.

Nearly six in 10 black Democrats see Fenty as caring primarily about upper-income residents; more than four in 10 see him as disproportionately concerned about whites in the District. In predominantly black Wards 7 & 8, east of the Anacostia River, where Fenty carried 54 percent of the primary vote four years ago, just 14 percent of all Democratic voters there now back him against Gray.

Citywide, most black voters doubt Fenty’s honesty and say he doesn’t understand their problems. Four years ago, just 17 percent of African Americans expressed unfavorable views of Fenty; now, that number has leapt to 56 percent…

Comparing the latest poll results with the results of Fenty’s unprecedented citywide sweep in the 2006 primary shows a significant drop in support everywhere in the District except wards 2 and 3. In those largely white wards, Fenty would get 55 percent of the vote now, matching his showing four years ago.

Fenty’s most dismal poll showing is among African Americans, with 19 percent of black Democrats saying they would support him, compared with 64 percent for Gray. Among white Democrats, Fenty leads Gray by 64 to 28 percent.

African Americans typically make up about six in 10 city Democrats, and this year, they account for 63 percent of the likely primary electorate, according to the poll, conducted by telephone Aug. 19 to 26. Even if the turnout was evenly split among blacks and whites, Gray would have an advantage because he scores higher among whites than Fenty does among blacks.

Ah, so there are racial and social class components to this dynamic. I wonder why it is that the African American community living in some of the most impoverished urban areas in the nation would not support a mayor that it overwhelmingly supported in 2006?

To a large extent, Fenty has staked his reelection on education reform, and he has repeatedly promised to retain Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. He has faulted Gray for declining to say whether he would keep Rhee in her post should he unseat Fenty.

Education is the top voting issue in the poll and one that works toward Fenty’s advantage, particularly among whites. White voters overwhelmingly see the District’s schools as better than they were four years ago. But black voters are as apt to say schools have deteriorated as improved.

Talk of Rhee’s performance and future is a constant on the campaign trail, but the deep polarization over the chancellor does not give either candidate a clear advantage. In the latest poll, 41 percent of Democrats say her record is a reason to vote for Fenty; 40 percent say it is a factor against Fenty. Among white voters polled, 68 percent say Rhee is a reason to support Fenty, but 54 percent of African Americans consider Rhee a strike against him.

Perhaps, letting loose the oligarchs pet Michelle Rhee to run roughshod over public schools in impoverished African American communities without soliciting community input or demonstrating a shred of honesty is a losing strategy? While wealthier, whiter Democrats support educational policies directed at predominantly minority, low-income communities, the people who populate those communities appear to be less than enthused. I would also note that the majority of those wealthier, whiter Democrats in wards 2 and 3 most likely do not have children attending DCPS schools. More interestingly, I would note that the split among D.C. Democrats tells us something about the current state of the party.

Indeed, at the national level, this same dynamic appears to be playing out. While noted pundits at such ‘progressive’ institutions as the Center for American Progress are big supporters of the corporatization of public schools in poor, minority communities [schools that their children would never attend], many of the core groups in the Democratic coalition are quickly becoming disenchanted with the entire farce. As with issues such as Wall Street corruption, illegal surveillance and human rights, the Democratic party under the tutelage of Team Obama has alienated its political base, and there is a good chance that the policies being pursued by the Democrats will lead to a Republican take-over of the House in 2011 and possibly the White House in 2012. Obama’s landslide election was due in large part to his ability to motivate the base through the ‘netroots‘, but the loss of enthusiasm in the base is unquestionably rising. If they sit on their hands watch out. The crazies will be back in power, and we’ll have to relive the Clinton years all over again. That sure ended well…