Muriel Bowser‘s picks for the Ward 4 and Ward 8 D.C. Council seats face certain or near-certain victory tomorrow. Just to be sure, though, Bowser’s allies on the Washington Post editorial board have a new editorial backing the Green Team picks with this claim: Bowser is not a famous fictional hypnotist.

“Given how critics portrayed Ms. Bowser as a lightweight in the recent mayoral contest, it’s somewhat amusing to see her now painted as a svengali capable of excessive control over others,” the editorial reads.

Like the Post says, there’s nothing sneaky about a mayor endorsing simpatico candidates. Barring new revelations, LL has to be skeptical of rival candidates’ claims that Bowser is personally calling and threatening wayward campaign donors, a move that would look heavy-handed to Rod Blagojevich.

But the Post doesn’t stop there. The editorial goes on to insist that Ward 8 Bowser favorite LaRuby May and Ward 4 pick Brandon Todd won’t be too overly indebted to her if they win office. This hardly seems credible, and not just because May and Todd inherited their campaign apparatuses from Bowser.

At times, these candidates literally walk in Bowser’s footsteps. When LL interviewed Todd earlier this month, he sat in the same spot in the exact same Georgia Avenue NW campaign office where Bowser sat when LL interviewed her a year ago. In other words: These aren’t exactly mavericks.

Still, the editorial board soldiers on. Their evidence that Todd isn’t afraid to disagree with Bowser, for example, is that he’s “skeptical” to further streetcar expansion. But that hardly sounds like actual disagreement with Bowser, who ripped $160 million out of the streetcar in her new budget. In fact, it might sound like the kind of thing someone who owes the mayor his political career would think.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery