LL has obtained a copy of the press release to be issued after At-Large Candidate Adam Clampitt announces that he’s shuttering his campaign today and endorsing Michael A. Brown.

Clampitt is billing it as a “veritable merger of the former rival campaigns,” with three members of Clampitt’s staff now working for Brown, including campaign manager Jarvis Houston. “Other resources formerly under Clampitt’s control will now be at Brown’s disposal as he continues his election bid and adopts portions of Clampitt’s platform,” the release reads.

And there’s this statement from Clampitt: “Michael Brown and I see to eye to eye on many issues, and this made my decision to support him easier.” said Clampitt. “Those who are familiar with my campaign know that advocating for a more business friendly climate in the District, innovating policing and crime fighting initiatives, fighting for full marriage equality and enacting term limits for elected officials are my most important issues.”

Full release after jump. Read the rest of this entry »

At-large council candidate Adam Clampitt issued a media advisory this morning for a “joint news conference” with fellow challenger Michael A. Brown on Monday to announce a “major development” in their campaign against incumbent Carol Schwartz.

Sources tell LL that Clampitt will announce that he his is ending his campaign and endorsing Brown. The presser is scheduled for noon Monday at Eastern Market.

Clampitt raised a lot of eyebrows early in the race by raising thousands from well-heeled donors to the mayoral run of Adrian M. Fenty, leading to scuttlebutt that Clampitt, a 33-year-old public relations executive and Capitol Hill resident, would be anointed by Fenty to oust Schwartz. That support from the mayor seems not to have materialized; his most recent campaign finance report showed Clampitt’s campaign to be some $12,000 in debt. He marched in last week’s Palisades 4th of July Parade with about a half-dozen supporters—a quite smaller contingent than he brought out a year ago as a virtual unknown.

Calls to Clampitt and Brown were not immediately returned.

UPDATE, 12:15 P.M.: Says Clampitt, “No comment.”

UPDATE, 12:30 P.M.: Brown says he has no comment, “not at this time.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

A brief perusal of Roget’s suggests a galaxy of promising adjectives for describing one’s reaction to a troubling Supreme Court decision.

For one, there is “troubled.” “Shocked,” “outraged,” and “concerned” come to mind. Further options include “chagrined,” “mortified,” “aggrieved,” “offended,” “incensed,” “riled up,” and “scared shitless.”

In their press releases, however, District politicos have been sticking to one word with alarming regularity:

Disappointed.

First, there is Ward 5 Councilmember Harry “Tommy” Thomas, Jr., who “expressed his extreme disappointment with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the District gun ban, and indicated that the Council must now establish strict standards to regulate the sale of handguns in the District of Columbia.”

Then we have Fenty, Nickles, and Lanier, who weigh in as follows:

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, Interim Attorney General Peter Nickles, and Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced their disappointment in today’s ruling of the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller…. “I’m disappointed in the Court’s ruling and believe introducing more handguns into the District will mean more handgun violence,” said Mayor Fenty.*

Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray includes the following in his statement:

Although I am disappointed by the court’s decision, working collectively with the Mayor, the Metropolitan Police, legal authorities, and residents, the Council will do all it can to prevent violence from escalating further as a result of today’s un-welcome weakening of our gun laws.

Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser:

I am disappointed in today’s Supreme Court action which ruled that the DC law banning private handgun possession at home violates the Second Amendment.

At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown:

My disappointment in the Supreme Courts ruling cannot be merely expressed by words. Every time I hear of another youth, another mother or child gunned down in our communities is yet another reminder of why we need these protective measures in place.

[Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton issued a statement in which the d-word was conspicuously absent, as did Adam Clampitt, Independent Candidate for DC Council At-Large.]

Come on, folks! Disappointed is when your team loses in spring training. Disappointed is when your kid doesn’t crack a B in algebra. Disappointed is when your dog relieves himself under the dining room table.

Whatever happened to “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

*The Post imputes “dismay” to Fenty. Over-editorialize much lately?

On Saturday afternoon, LL was watching the weather report with bated breath, as a line of thunderstorms threatened to put the kibosh on this year’s Capital Pride Parade, the centerpiece of the yearly gay-community celebration and the first chance for the players in this year’s campaign season to truly come out. (Yes, pun intended.)

Luckily, the show went on. The big news of the parade were the mystery signs:

All along the parade route, posted on lampposts were signs reading “Ask Carol Schwartz why she OPPOSES marriage equality” in Schwartz’ trademark yellow-and-white. The signs carried absolutely no indication of where they might have come from. Shady!

Gay activist Peter Rosenstein told LL he had seen folks on stepladders posting the signs earlier in the afternoon, but neither he nor anyone else LL consulted had any idea who they were. The challengers who marched in the parade—Adam Clampitt, Dee Hunter, and Patrick Mara—all denied having anything to do with the signs. (A Clampitt aide, in fact, phoned in a preemptive denial, before LL even showed up for the parade.)

Schwartz called it “the work of a cowardly liar” and furthermore implored LL not to “rain on my parade” (har har) by giving the cowards any ink—sorry, Carol! (For more on the does-Carol-support-gay-marriage theme, read Washington Blade articles by Rosenstein and by Schwartz.)

LL thought he might have solved the mystery when, right on the middle of the 17th Street NW commercial strip, a spectator holding one of the signs in one hand and a drink in the other marched right out to confront Schwartz, who was walking behind her yellow Pontiac Firebird. From a distance, LL seemed to see Schwartz saying to the interloper, “I do! I do!” in response to the sign’s query.

After Schwartz passed, LL asked the man, Andrew Campbell of Dupont Circle, whether he’d been involved in the signmaking. Nope, he said—”I pulled it off the lamppost.”

LL quizzed him further on the reasoning behind his anti-Schwartz stance. “I dunno,” he said. “Look at what the sign says!”

The crowd rest of the crowd seemed not to care much. Take this spectator reaction to the confrontation: “Tell him to fuck off, Carol!”

Many more pix after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Campaign finance reports were due Tuesday. LL’s spent the last couple of day poring over them to give City Desk readers the inside dirt. This round: at-large council races.

• Kwame Brown: The Kwame money train has slowed just a bit, with only $55,480 added to the war chest this period. Take that, though, as testament to Brown’s early success at shaking the money tree, what with a total of $408,000 raised total. The pull this period is still heavy on construction and development interests, but there’s a fair number of smaller Joe Q. Citizen donations, too. Kwame also been the spendiest candidate in town, spending nearly twice his revenues for the period. The bulk of that—more than $70,000—went to campaign aides. (See Nikita Stewart’s Post story for more on Papajohnsgate.) And then there’s this “consulting” fee: $125 to Capitol Hill Cleaning Service. Care to share any cleaning tips you learned, Kwame?

  The Totals: In: $55,480; Out: $104,012.74; Cash on Hand: $133,812.49; Debts: $0

• Adam Clampitt: Clampitt, who had raised a lot of cash from Fenty supporters in previous month, seems to slowed, with only $11,560 pulled in this period bringing the total haul to just over $60,000. Splashy names are getting few, with philathropist Calvin Cafritz really the only show-stopper. (There’s also a $150 from the “Friends of Jack” PAC.) The interesting part is all the spending Clampitt’s done—on rent, renovating office space, consultant wages, printing, software, etc. His accounts payable at the moment total over $12,000, putting his campaign well into the red.

  The Totals: In: $11,560; Out: $22,091.86; Cash on Hand: $1,372.17; Debts: $12,239.90

• Michael A. Brown: These numbers aren’t bad, save for this fact: $21,300 of those revenues are coming out of lobbyist Brown’s own pocket. The rest is a sprinkling of D.C. folks and a rather large number of donations out of Florida and Georgia (on dates which correspond to plane tickets and a hotel stay in St. Augustine). As far as spending goes, Brown’s dished out $5,000 on campaign materials, plus $15,000 to four paid campaign aides.

  The Totals: In: $36,659.33; Out: $23,136.33; Cash on Hand: $13,523; Debts: $831.50

• PaulDavid Schwartzman: The Statehood Green candidate seems to be going with a minimalist campaign, with five donations totaling $450 (of that, $100 is from the candidate himself). He has spent none of it.

  The Totals: In: $450; Out: $0; Cash on Hand: $450; Debts: $0

• Did Not Report: Carol Schwartz, Dee Hunter, Clarence Cherry—Schwartz just announced her campaign kickoff earlier this week, and Cherry, who has picked up petitions to challenge Brown, is an unknown. The mystifying thing here is Hunter, who has yet to file a campaign finance report even though he’s been raising money for months. No January or March reports have been filed either; shortly after the January deadline, Hunter told LL he had raised about $30,000 and had filed for a 15-day extension. Fifteen days later—make that 130 days later—and still no report. Hunter undoubtedly has something to report: On April 14, Hunter held a fundraiser at the Park at 14th.

UPDATE, 6:54 P.M: LL was wrong to report that Hunter has not filed a campaign finance report; Hunter calls to say he’s been filing monthly reports as an exploratory committee, compiling receipts in excess of $40,000. Exploratory reports are not available online and LL was not able to obtain them before close of business today. He will follow up on Monday. LL apologizes for the error.

Michael A. Brown is filing his papers today to officially enter the race for an at-large D.C. Council seat as an independent. He’ll be facing longtime incumbent Carol Schwartz, as well as motivated challengers Adam Clampitt and Dee Hunter, in November for the non-Democratic slot.

Brown, son of legendary Democratic honcho Ron Brown and veteran of failed runs for mayor and Ward 4 councilmember, spent almost two months pondering his run on an exploratory basis. This time, Brown says, he’s really done his homework, leading him to believe he has a winning strategy. “It’s been all scientific,” he says. “When I ran for mayor, it was kind of on gut. Ward 4 council—that was half gut, half scientific.”

His winning issues, Brown says, are a bit of a reprise from his mayoral run, where he made youth issues a centerpiece of his campaign. This time, he says, he’ll be focused on the disposition of closed school buildings—”I am not a proponent of selling every asset we have for condo development. There is no reason those assets shouldn’t be turned into libraries, vocational centers, senior centers”—and a “lack of opportunity” for youth.

In addition, Brown—who has a background in municipal finance—says he’s concerned about the District’s debt load and advocates refinancing bond issues for the baseball stadium and the convention center. “We need to take advantage of the rates now, get the payments down,” he says.

A big question is whether Brown, 42, is willing to give up his lucrative lobbying gig to be a full-time councilmember—a pledge so far given by all his opponents. He recently left the lobbying firm Alcalde & Fay to join Boston-based Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge.

“I haven’t made that assessment,” Brown says, citing a need to speak with current councilmembers with side gigs such as Ward 2’s Jack Evans and at-large member David Catania about their experiences. “My first priority will be the people of the District of Columbia.”

Brown says he has no events planned until later next month, when he will conduct an eight-ward “whistle-stop tour” on Metro.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Yesterday, LL reported that former mayoral candidate Michael A. Brown is officially exploring a run for the non-Democratic at-large council seat now held by Carol Schwartz. LL polled his likely competition.

Says Dee Hunter: “Mike Brown’s political instincts in the the past haven’t been good,” he says. “This is a guy who ran for mayor, dropped out, got 600 votes, then turned around and endorsed Linda Cropp days before Adrian Fenty won every precinct in the city….I think his political instincts are off in this race, too.”

Says Adam Clampitt: “Regardless of who is in the race, I represent the best candidate to beat Carol Schwartz,” he says. “This is all about door-knocking. Whoever knocks on the most doors wins, and I’ve knocked on the most doors.”

Says Schwartz: No comment, through a spokesperson.

Earlier today, Adam Clampitt filed documents with the city declaring his candidacy for an at-large seat on the D.C. Council. An independent, he’s eyeing the guaranteed non-Democratic slot now held by Republican Carol Schwartz.

The fact that Clampitt is the first candidate to file, more than 10 months ahead of the election, is interesting enough, but still more intriguing: Clampitt’s campaign chair is Judith Terra, the socialite and arts patron who took a heavy interest in the successful campaigns of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser. A 2005 fundraiser at her Crestwood mansion, White Oak, brought more than $35,000 to the Fenty campaign. It’s a pick that brings Clampitt a dose of instant credibility.

Terra is traveling and was unavailable for comment today, but Clampitt says she has been a friend of his family’s for many years. When he and Terra worked together on Bowser’s campaign earlier this year, he says, “That’s how we really connected.”

“She’s looking for good, young leadership to take the city forward,” says Clampitt, who says that Terra’s role is to be “very symbolic of the campaign” and to “rally the troops.”

Other members of his team: co-chair Jauhar Abraham, who’s founder and CEO of Peaceoholics; campaign manager Lane Hudson, who’s involved in the Ward 1 Democrats and gay issues; and treasurer Judy Zamore, who filled the same role for Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in 2006. (”I thought that was symbolic,” Clampitt says, “because Sherrod Brown was someone who beat a very entrenched Republican.”)

Worthy of note: Terra used to be GOP-friendly herself. Her late husband, Daniel Terra, was a legendary fundraiser for Ronald Reagan, which won him a slot as “cultural ambassador at large” in the 1980s. Terra told the previous LL that Reagan “was just a very, very nice man…and he had the strength that comes with a strong set of convictions.”

Schwartz said in an interview earlier this month that she plans to run for re-election but has yet to start campaigning. Her top aide, John Abbot, had no comment today. Currently “exploring” and also likely to file in the race is Ward 1 attorney and advisory neighborhood commissioner Dee Hunter.