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| washingtonpost.com - Marc Fisher (washingtonpost.com)
A couple of thousand miles from the yammering politicians in Denver, a world away from the TV news version of an America polarized into red and blue boxes, the Valley West neighborhood pool in Fairfax County in these last days before school reopens is a place where Republican moms are intrigued by Barack Obama and their Democratic friends wonder if this is the year to switch over to John McCain.
A s the two parties and the nation prepare for the Olympics of politics, let's pause to see how a master performs one of the most daring events. Watch closely now as Ike Leggett, the highest elected official in Montgomery County, goes for gold in Evolution of a Principle:
Next week, when President C.D. "Dan" Mote welcomes freshmen to the University of Maryland, he will inform them that the college police will enforce underage drinking laws "with terrific ferocity." And then he will turn around and, recognizing that most students do drink, tell the teenagers "to take care of each other when they see someone who's passed out, to take advantage of all of our services for students who abuse alcohol."
T hree mayors have sought to remake Ward 8, home to many of Washington's poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods. One, Marion Barry, got nowhere but is widely beloved, hailed on the street as a champion of the needy. The next, Anthony Williams, utterly transformed the landscape yet was treated as an arrogant outsider from Day One right up until his departure. The third, Adrian Fenty, eschews grand visions and emotional bonds, promising only to make things work.
Just for fun, I asked a bunch of D.C. Council members why it has been so hard to decide between the company that has run the D.C. Lottery for the past 25 years and an upstart challenger that, according to independent consultants, is offering to do a better job at a lower cost.
Keith Hines's bicycle is out on the porch, ready to roll. Hines owned a car, but lately he'd been biking because of $4 gas and because he'd been thinking about being green.
From Marc Fisher's "Raw Fisher" blog:
You spend time, energy and money on landscaping and flowers, on making your home a respite, a retreat. Then the deer come along and eat it all up. This happens again and again, and finally you go to the state and get yourself a wildlife damage-control permit, which means you can call up the man with the bow and arrow and have him come sit in a tree and take out the offending pests.
Mayor Adrian Fenty and his feisty attorney general, Peter Nickles, stood on the steps of the Wilson Building this week ostensibly to announce how the District will comply with the Supreme Court's rejection of Washington's ban on handguns. But really, they were delivering very much the opposite message: With only the narrowest of exceptions, we're sticking with our gun ban. Don't like it? Sue us.
What's happened in the four years since the District shuttered four of its neighborhood libraries, lost another one to a fire and launched an endless debate over whether to renovate or get rid of its main branch downtown?
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