MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Yesterday's primaries in Maryland and the District answered a lot of political questions about our region's future. Barring unforeseen occurrences, we'll have a new Mayor in D.C. with City Council Chairman Vincent Gray taking out incumbent Adrian Fenty. We'll have a new power structure in Prince George's County where former state delegate Rushern Baker fought off Sheriff Michael Jackson in the race for county executive.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIBut new personnel seem to be where the answers stop and the new questions begin. What will happen to the push to reform public schools in D.C. under the mayor? What will happen with the effort to inject life into Prince George's economy? Joining us to explore these questions and examine just how we got here is Marc Fisher. Marc Fisher is enterprise editor of The Washington Post. Marc, good to see you again.

MR. MARC FISHERAlways great to be with you.

NNAMDIMarc, let's start with what happened in the District of Columbia polling. We had the head of the -- the executive director of the Board of Elections and Ethics Rokey Suleman here last week. Talk about all of the things D.C. was gonna try to do at the same time. We had early voting. We had absentee voting. We had same day registration. We had paper trails. And then up until -- well after 10 o'clock last night, nothing.

FISHERAbsolutely nothing. Nothing for three hours after the polls closed. In an average year in Virginia, all of the returns would have been counted by the time the District last night gave us its first tiny trickle of returns. It -- that trickle continued well past midnight, well past 1:00 in the morning. It was only around 1:30 this morning that significant numbers finally came in. The problem, apparently, was dealing with the computers, downloading the material, the voting results, from the cartridges that are part of the voting machines. The District did, as you said, introduce a whole bunch of new initiatives this year including early voting, same day registration and a new touch-screen voting machine. But that's not really the excuse here because, as I saw at several polling places yesterday, the touch-screen machines were really not being extensively used.

NNAMDITrue.

FISHERIt was really the same old fill-in-the-blank scanable paper ballots. And that was the primary way that people were voting. The excuse that they gave us last night was that they had these two different systems, the touch-screen machines and the paper ballots, and they -- one of those systems was downloading a whole lot slower than the other and they made a decision that they didn't wanna release any numbers until they had results from both systems. They were really trying to avoid what happened two years ago when, again, there was an enormous delay because someone had improperly downloaded some material and they ended up putting out some faulty numbers. They didn't wanna go through that again, so instead, they outraged everybody. And council members were just pulling their hair out and really hitting the election's board hard last night.

NNAMDISo it's gonna have to improve the next time around or heads are likely to roll. Of course, there are some people who say we have become too impatient. We have become so used to having tallies coming in the minute the polls close. But now, we have unrealistic expectations for our District that's tried to do so many things at the same time.

FISHERWell, the --we -- but I'm sure it's true that we have unrealistic expectations, and everyone wants everything to happen instantly these days. But even after several hours, to have no results, even back in the days of good old check off on a single slip of paper...

NNAMDIHand counting.

FISHER...the hand counting, in those days, you would get significant results after a couple of hours. So this was a case of modern technology being way slower than the old-fashioned way.

NNAMDIIn the District of Columbia, Vincent Gray rode voter dissatisfaction with Adrian Fenty all the way to the bank. This is a mayor who won every precinct in the city four years ago, who took on schools, who reduced crime, who built new libraries and rec centers and who ultimately fell out of favor with the majority of the city. I saw the piece that you wrote about Adrian Fenty. You think he really changed over the past four years? Did he? Because people used to say, when he was on the city council, he never said very much. The first time he campaigned against Charlene Drew Jarvis and was involved in a debate here, he didn't say very much that seemed to be meaningful, but he won every precinct in the city four years ago. And there seems to be some general suggestion, certainly in your piece, that he really has changed.

FISHERWell, you know, I think he is the same guy he's always been. But four years ago, he overcame his natural instinct which is to want to be judged by what he does, not by what he says. He has a real renaissance about going out and selling his message and doing the kinds of routine things that mayors have to do. That was true of him as a council member as well as mayor. What changed was his -- in his first campaign and when he was a council member, he forced himself to go out and do these things that he was everywhere. He was "Action Jackson." He was the guy who knocked on tens of thousands of doors.

FISHERAnd then as he became mayor, he stopped. He didn't go out to communities and let them feel like they were part of his administration, that they were being heard. That was the number one complaint I heard all across the city from voters who said, what happened to this guy who, at least in his first campaign, appeared to be so accessible, so transparent? And then he gets into office and he's very parsimonious about information. He doesn't want people to know where he's traveling to. He -- there was a total change. And you know, back in high school, studying for the SAT exams, one of the words that always gave me the most trouble was hubris. (laugh) I just couldn't remember what that meant. Now, we'll be to open the dictionary and see a picture of Adrian Fenty, and it will tell us what that meant. This is...

NNAMDIAnd Marc Fisher will have no trouble remembering what hubris means in the future. He is the enterprise editor of The Washington Post. He joins us in studio. We spent a great deal of time deconstructing what Mayor Fenty did wrong in his campaign and we will some more. But before we do that, tell us a little bit about what you think Vince Gray did right.

FISHERVince Gray was very late to get into this race. He took a long time deciding whether he would challenge...

NNAMDIAnd everybody thought it would be too late.

FISHERRight. It was late March. By the time he finally made up his mind, everyone thought how could he possibly come back against this enormous financial advantage that the mayor had, and, of course, this was the mayor who'd won every precinct in the city and had a long list of concrete accomplishments that he could point to. Vince Gray had a terrific organization. He brought together the old Linda Cropp crowd, some of the old Marion Barry crowd, as well as a lot of business and union folks who were simply disenchanted, disillusioned with Adrian Fenty.

FISHERSo, in one sense, all he had to be was the non-Fenty. But to give him credit, he went out there, and he campaigned in this sort of you all come kind of approach where he kept up this mantra of one city. He made it clear that he was someone who was not on the Fenty pace but was a much slower, more conciliatory and more thinking kind of mayor is what he promised to be, which, of course, raises concerns about whether he will be indecisive and whether he will consult with too many people, will he go from one extreme to the other. That's a possibility. But I think people were hungry for someone who was going to be a little more caring about people and a little less attached to the numbers the way Adrian Fenty seem to be.

NNAMDIIf you like to join this conversation, call us at 800-433-8850 with your analysis of what happened in any of the elections in the region, in Maryland or the District of Columbia, 800-433-8850, or you can go to our website, kojoshow.org. Make a comment or ask a question there. Joining us now by telephone is Tom Lindenfeld. He is the president of LSG Strategies, a grassroots organizing and political telemarketing farm based in Washington, D.C. He served as a strategist to D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's reelection campaign. Tom Lindenfeld, thank you for joining us.

MR. TOM LINDENFELDThank you for having me.

NNAMDITom Lindenfeld, you also served as a strategist in Mayor Fenty's 2006 campaign. What would you say was the essential, most important difference between then and now?

LINDENFELDWell, let's start with some basics here. The fact of the matter is that we're talking about a mayor who was a council member, was an ANC member before that, somebody involved in this community that cared deeply about both where he lives and the city that he lives in. And, you know, that showed your net campaign. I believe that what he's done has been nothing less spectacular in terms of how he has changed and made an impact on the city.

LINDENFELDAnd, you know, unfortunately, you know, we can spend a lot of time talking about the tactics of the campaign and what worked and what didn't work, but the things that I take from this are that, you know, we have a city that's a changed city, that Marion Barry won because he was the – he was a change candidate. Sharon Pratt Kelly won. She was a change candidate. Tony Williams won. He was a change candidate. And, quite frankly, in this particular case, you know, in 2006, the comparison is that Fenty was the change candidate at that time, and Vince Gray became that in this occasion.

NNAMDIWhen you say the change candidate in all of the cases that you mentioned, all of those candidates essentially said they would change the political culture of the city. Is that what you mean when you say change candidate?

LINDENFELDWell, it's not just to change the culture. It's also change the agenda and change what we're gonna do. And this is a city which has an orientation towards the future, rather than the past. And, you know, I think that that's an interesting dynamic in the politics of this city as compared to many others.

NNAMDIBut I got the impression -- and I know Marc Fisher is gonna jump in very quickly, and I'll have no time left to speak, but I got the impression that the Gray campaign was based less on changing what he's going to do than changing how it's going to be done. Tom Lindenfeld?

LINDENFELDThat's possible, but I think that (laugh) since I was involved with the Fenty campaign and not the Gray campaign, that's a question you should ask others. I would say, though, that, you know, look, the problems that we saw have to do with a communication style. You have to -- you know, have to do with the degree to which that communication and contact and priority is applied. You know, the problem that we have here is an enormous disconnect between the vast improvements that occurred in the city. Fifty-nine, almost 60, percent of the people think that the city is going in the right direction compared to other places around the country, which I also work in and where that's not the case. Sixty-seven percent of the people say that Adrian Fenty brought the change that's needed to this city. Those are stunning numbers. The fact of the matter is that the schools are better off. We have new principals, new physical schools, new teachers, new energy.

NNAMDIYup, despite all that.

FISHERAnd it didn't work.

LINDENFELDFrom homeless shelters to permanent housing, you know, the elimination of child protection cases from thousands to single digits, new parks, you know, the waterfront.

NNAMDITom...

LINDENFELDHalf the neighborhoods in ways that simply never happened before.

FISHERTom, the list is endless...

LINDENFELDYeah.

FISHER...and Fenty distributed that list to virtually everyone in the city, showing that he had to -- these accomplishments in every ward of the city. And yet what we see in these results is the starkest racial divide in many years in the city. And after two mayors whose central message, Anthony Williams and Adrian Fenty, whose central message was that they're going to rise above all these group divisions, all these group dynamics, and they were gonna focus on competence and delivery of services -- and both of them could make a pretty good case that they had done exactly that -- even after all that, now along comes a candidate, Vince Gray who says, you know, that's not enough, that's not what we need here. We also need to send a message to people that we care about them, and that we're gonna go out and protect their jobs even if -- and maybe do that instead of cutting back in schools and instead of getting rid of teachers who may be not up to snuff. So again we've seen this emergence of this racial divide. Stunningly huge majorities for Vince Gray in Ward 7 and 8, east of the Anacostia River. Equally high margins for Adrian Fenty in upper northwest in white parts of the city. Is this attempt to get past the racial divide now in ruins?

LINDENFELDWell, first of all, I think Vince Gray is completely correct. Tone and approach mean just as much as content and results. And the combination of the two is exactly what we need. And, you know, it's unfortunate that that didn't, you know, wasn't evident or wasn't possible to convey in Adrian's candidacy. But, you know, my hope is that Vince Gray is the kind of person who will bring us together, that we'll be able to, you know, work together as a city to be able to overcome that racial divide. I believe that, you know, at times -- tough economic times, the racial problems and divisions that we have are all the more apparent and that, you know, this is a time when there's many people who feel that they have been left out and aren't doing as well as others. And, you know, it's important that we address that not only in action but in tone and approach. And I think Vincent Gray hit the right combination in doing that, you know, and I think that speaks well to the future of this city.

NNAMDITom Lindenfeld is the president of LSG Strategies, a grass-roots organizing and political telemarketing firm based in Washington D.C. He served as a strategist to D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's reelection campaign. Tom, thank you very much for joining us.

LINDENFELDThank you very much. I hope to do it again.

NNAMDIYou will. You too can join this conversation at 800-433-8850. But before we go to the phones, Marc Fisher, there were two people who crossed that racial divide that I'd be interested in hearing your comments on. One crossed it fairly early and that sent a signal to me. I'm not quite sure how I interpreted that signal, but when I saw very early on that Alice Rivlin -- the former head of the financial control board in D.C. and someone who is dedicated to maintaining the city's finances in a stable manner -- was for Vince Gray, that immediately put questions into my head. And then later on down the road came Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh.

FISHERAnd in both cases I think these are examples that we saw all across the spectrum ideologically in almost every line of work. These are people who saw how Adrian Fenty operated as mayor and said, we've got to do something different. And with the Councilmembers such as Mary Cheh complain, throughout his term, that Adrian Fenty wouldn't give them the time of day, wouldn't -- literally would not return their phone calls. This was true of people like Alice Rivlin in -- who are advisers to mayors and...

NNAMDIYeah. It seems to me that if you become mayor of the District, one of the first people you wanna have in your corner, so to speak, is Alice Rivlin.

FISHERAbsolutely. And, you know, it didn't matter what part of the ideological spectrum we were on. It didn't matter what function you served. You could be sure that Adrian Fenty would find a way to alienate you. That was the story of this term. And the irony was that here was a mayor who had this extraordinary list of accomplishments, and citizens saw this, recognized it and credit him for it. And yet they also got the impression that he was someone who was not playing nicely with everyone else on the block, and the people resented it and expressed themselves quite clearly.

NNAMDIHere is Dee in Baltimore, Md. Dee, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DEEYes. Thank you, Kojo. Kojo, look, three things I wanna say. First thing is, the insensitivity, the arrogance of Fenty for not really listening to the D.C. people. Secondly, you know, I'm not so optimistic, you know, about Gray's election because he's a seasoned politician. And, you know, I don't know how much changes he's gonna bring. The last thing is, you know, I think the major reason why it can't be denied he wins because of -- Michelle Rhee, you know, it's not what she did, it's how she did it. And the arrogance of it, you know, not really engaging people and then telling what and why, you know, she did what she did. And so, really, you know, I think, you know, Fenty got exactly what he deserved. Thank you.

NNAMDIThank you for your call, Dee. I wanna move on, before we bring Marc in again, to Lynn in Washington, D.C. Lynne, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

LYNNHi. Thanks for taking my call, and we love your show. I'm from D.C. and I voted for Gray. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was that little move by Fenty to try to make it so that independents could vote in the Democratic primary at the last minute. I agree with your last caller that he's just too arrogant, and when you put that together with Michelle Rhee firing a bunch of teachers because we didn't have the money and then we did have the money, I think a vote for Fenty would have had him say that there was a mandate, and who knows what he would have done next because they really don't care what anybody else thinks. And they don't think that the rule applied to them and that's why he lost.

NNAMDILynn, before you go, what did you think about the improvements if -- as they have been characterized in performance in the school system?

LYNNWell, there were improvements. I don't doubt that. But I don't -- I believe that Vincent Gray, even without Michelle Rhee, will continue to make improvements and make those improvements for everybody.

NNAMDIOkay.

LYNNIn the end, if you have a guy that you can't trust, you know, that -- I agree with the last caller. Vince Gray has been around for a long time, but if I'm gonna choose between two politicians, you know, I'm gonna choose the guy who I think is more honest.

NNAMDIOkay, Lynn, thank you very much for your call. Marc Fisher, you wrote a Washington Post Magazine piece on the enigma that for some people is Michelle Rhee. On the one hand, you have people like Lynn and our previous caller. And then on the other, you have people who support Michelle Rhee not only because of the improvements in the school system but because they believe it could not have been done unless somebody like Michelle Rhee was prepared to give the school system a swift kick in the pants. That's what attracted attention.

FISHERAnd this is going to be the central question going forward over the next four years. What happens to the school system? What happens to the whole idea of reform at least as Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee defined it? You have this national school reform movement that Michelle Rhee became the poster girl for. She was the one who was on the cover of Time magazine wielding the broom, and that picture as much as anything else became the central image that was held against both Rhee and Fenty by those who, like these two callers, used words such as insensitivity and arrogance. The -- to unpack that word, arrogance, I think is to get at the core of what happened in this election. What does it mean -- I mean, people -- do people really want a more polite, courteous politician in these times, in this country where we seem to grab it...

NNAMDIIn this political environment?

FISHERRight. In the era of the Tea Party where we seem to gravitate toward those who are most boisterous and brash. Adrian Fenty was proud of being brash, but voters and especially black voters perceived him as being arrogant. What does that mean? Does that mean that he fired too many people who voters knew and saw that people were losing their livelihoods? Or does it mean, like a lot of voters told me when I was out on the streets, that they would watch him on TV on the news every night and they would see him being snippy and curt with reporters. And they thought he was kind of sneaky the way he wouldn’t answer questions. If we can get to the bottom of that word, arrogance, I think we'd really have this psychological insight into this divide that developed in the city.

NNAMDIHere's Demetra in Washington, D.C. Demetra, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DEMETRAHi. I'm a native Washingtonian and so sad today for my city. I -- it's another example to me of America voting for style over substance. I think most of your callers did not mention the children, they’re concerned about teachers losing jobs, which is legitimate. But the most legitimate thing is what happens to the children. And when you see results, the way Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee, I just don't get it. I really -- I feel like I'm so different from most of my fellow Americans. I don't get it.

NNAMDIWell...

DEMETRAI don't -- we're gonna see it in Obama. We see it, we're attached to Sarah Palin. That is the style over substance. Sarah Palin bore serious people like Obama and Fenty, who don’t want to go out at hand, who just want to do their job.

FISHERWell, no one could accuse Vince Gray of not being a serious person. Vince Gray is often accused of being an overly serious (laugh) person. He -- I mean, he is someone who if you ask about joblessness will give you an eight-minute lecture on all kinds of policies and procedures within the bureaucracy. So he's a very serious guy.

NNAMDIBut you ignore style at your peril.

FISHERWell, exactly. And Adrian Fenty more than ignored it, he spurned it, he looked down on it. And in a nice way, he may have been led astray by his attorney general close friend, long-time family associate Peter Nickles, who has this scorched-earth approach to not only the law but governing. And he seemed to be very influential in forming the style and tone of the Fenty mayoralty. But this caller, compared to the previous ones, is a classic example of how people in the city see this in such -- through such different lenses.

FISHERAnd again, I think the schools are the best example. There is a great deal of worry that a lot of these idealistic young teachers who were brought in by Fenty and Rhee will now either be unwelcome or will simply leave of their own accord. And then what happens? You know, Vince Gray has been saying he wants to continue on the reform path, and yet he says he wants to restore jobs in the schools for people who live here in the city. Are those mutually exclusive? Certainly, Fenty and Rhee seem to think so.

NNAMDIWe'll certainly find out. Demetra, thank you very much for your call. We've got to take a short break. When we come back, we'll continue this conversation. Our primary wrap-up from yesterday's elections in the District of Columbia in Maryland with Marc Fisher of The Washington Post. If the lines are filled, you can send us an email to kojo@wamu.org or try a tweet, @kojoshow. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe're talking about yesterday's primaries with Marc Fisher, enterprise editor at The Washington Post. And there are a lot of you online. We will get to your calls, but if the lines are busy then you may want to go to our website, kojoshow.org, and ask a question there. 800-433-8850 is the number to call. Let me take one more on the district. Here now is Gary in Washington, D.C. Gary, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

GARYHey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my call. I guess I agree with the prior caller that it's confusing how Gray could emerge the winner here. It seems like a long time ago, but Fenty won every single precinct in the city and we really had one city and the polling...

NNAMDIFor a minute.

GARY...numbers from yesterday show us that we're now really two cities, we're divided. How do you -- do you think Gray's campaign caused that by instigating division, and how do you think they can heal it?

NNAMDINo, I think Gray's campaign probably took advantage of the division in the city. It certainly didn't cause it, but you underscore what's probably likely to be the biggest challenge ahead for Vince Gray when he come -- becomes mayor, because he ran a campaign saying that he could be the one who is uniting the city. One of the reasons that the city is divided and disunited again has to do with what we were discussing earlier, the changes, the rapid changes that came within the school system. Vince Gray has promised to continue school reform. It's going to be difficult to do that without raising -- continuing to raise hackles in the city.

FISHERAnd the real problem that Vince Gray will face right off the bat is how does he square his own personal desire to bring the city together, which I think is genuine, with the people who surround him? And last night, our reporters at the Gray headquarters were struck by who was in that audience. And it was overwhelmingly people who had either lost their jobs within the Fenty administration, fired teachers, fired administrators and contractors who'd been unable to get city contracts during the Fenty administration. So all of those folks are now going to be coming at Vince Gray. And a lot of the staffers -- he is likely to hire -- the people who’ll be running his transition are people who are veterans of the Marion Barry and Linda Cropp years, and who were very much part of that style of doing business. So this is gonna be a real tension for Vince Gray.

NNAMDIOn to Montgomery County. Thank you very much for your call, Gary, because joining us now by telephone is Hans Riemer. He is a member-elect of the Montgomery County Council. He's a democrat who won in at-large seat at yesterday's primary election. He previously worked as an advisor to AARP and as national youth -- director for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Hans Riemer, thank you very much for joining us.

MR. HANS RIEMERThank you, Kojo. I'm very glad to be here. I appreciate your making some time.

NNAMDIWhat's the latest tally? By the last count, you were positioned to win that at-large seat over the incumbent Duchy Trachtenberg. What's the latest on the final tally?

RIEMERWell, there were four incumbents running again and five of us challengers. And I am very solidly, strongly in second place now, so I've edged out. I should say I secured more votes than three of the incumbents and one of them will be staying home. So I'm very excited.

NNAMDIAnd that’s likely to be Duchy Trachtenberg, according to what we see.

RIEMERThat's right. That's right. I'm very excited. Yesterday at the polls, I stood outside and greeted voters coming in for I guess, what, 11 hours. And people just kept looking at me and urging me on and telling me they were supporting me, and I felt a very strong connection. People want strong, progressive leadership in Montgomery County, and they felt that my values are in the right place, and I couldn't be more humbled and more appreciative...

NNAMDIStrong, progressive leadership was always fairly easy in Montgomery County when you had a lot of money and budgets were flowing. But for the first time in memory, public spending in Montgomery County and localities is shrinking. That clearly is one of the major issues in this race. Where do you position yourself on budget balancing?

RIEMERThat's right. Well, in tough times, that makes people look ever more for leaders whose values they can trust. That's what I came out of this election understanding, that everyone knows that we're gonna be balancing some very disparate concerns, that we have to bring people into the process that we're gonna have to figure out how to reform our government for a fiscal year where there is not the resources that there were for eight, 10 years ago. And making those trade-offs, you know, the voters want people they can trust. And so actually, in an era of challenge and difficulty, ever more do people want strong, progressive leadership.

FISHERDo you think that the results of the vote yesterday show that perhaps people in the county have not yet understood just how tough this budget situation is? The number one vote-getter in the at-large race was Mark Elrich, who is probably by most accounts, the most liberal, the most free-spending member of the council. And here he is taking the number one position.

RIEMERI think you're conflating progressive values with being spendthrift. Actually, Mark has supported fiscal conservatism on this council. And he has been a leader in trying to figure out how to solve our budget crisis by improving efficiency in government. And we're gonna prove here in Montgomery County that democrats can run a government that is responsible with the tax dollar, that is efficient in generating the outcomes that we're trying to achieve. There's the -- we're good at that.

NNAMDIThe -- go ahead, please, Marc.

RIEMERAbsolutely. Absolutely.

FISHERThe effort to cut the budget and to find some fiscal restraint in a county that offers all kinds of cradle-to-grave services has been a tough one, and it's been especially tough because you had an advocate for the school system in Jerry Weast, who was just a pit bull. And so he was able to maintain funding for the schools in a way that perhaps someone who hadn't been there as long and who wasn't as good at fighting would not have been able to do. Now, he’s retiring and you're gonna see a new school superintendent. Does that mean that there will be more of an effort to take a cut out of the school system to make the budget balanced?

RIEMERWell, a lot of us feel that we're gonna have to improve the relationship, or I should say, you know, forge a different kind of relationship with the school board and with MCPS. And the last budget cycle, these disagreements resulted in incredible brinkmanship, and you’ll recall that Jerry Weast threatened to sue the county over proposed cuts. And that kind of political brinkmanship is just not going to work. And we're gonna have to figure out how to save money in the schools. And we're going to figure out how to save money everywhere, you know, people...

NNAMDIWhen you say we're gonna have to figure out how to save money in the schools, you were endorsed by the Montgomery County Education Association, which everybody seems to feel is a fairly influential endorsement. How do you go back to the MCEA and say, look we've got to cut the school budget?

RIEMERWell, I've said at every forum in front of every audience that everything is gonna be on the table. And that's the only way we're gonna get through this crisis. And everybody understands that. So we're gonna balance some tough concerns. Montgomery County is a fantastic place to live. The schools, the parks, the libraries, public safety, that’s what makes us a superb community and among the best places to live in the country. So we're gonna make sure that that is the case going forward and that -- how to balance that, you know, that's the question of good responsive engagement, progressive engagement with voters, with constituency groups, with everybody. We're gonna have to bring everybody together and make the right decisions.

NNAMDIHans Riemer is a member elected in Montgomery County Council. He's a Democrat who won an at-large seat in yesterday's primary election. It certainly appears that way. He previously worked as an adviser to AARP and as National Youth Vote Director for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Hans Riemer, thank you very much for joining us.

RIEMERThank you, Kojo. Great to be here.

NNAMDIWe're still talking with Marc Fisher of The Washington Post. He is the enterprise editor. Marc, it seems like the third time's the charm for Rushern Baker. He lost twice to former Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson in 2002 and 2006. He ran again for that job again this year against Sheriff Michael Jackson and three or four other candidates. Jackson being the candidate to win Joy Johnson's support. What do you think this race means for Prince George's County? And what do you think ultimately help seal the deal for Rushern Baker?

FISHERWell, supposed you could cynically argue that it was simply voter exhaustion. They kept -- Rushern Baker kept coming after them and coming after them, and finally, they said, well, all right. Fine.

NNAMDIWe got to elect this guy.

FISHERYeah. But I think there was -- there's a certain fatigue in the county with Jack Johnson and the leadership he's provided over the last eight years. And with his -- the other major contender in this race, the sheriff of Prince George's County, Michael...

NNAMDIWho was generally seen as Johnson's surrogate.

FISHERExactly. Who was supported by Johnson and who -- at least some stylistic similarities and as far he seemed -- I mean, I don't know if arrogance is the right word, but certainly an attitude that, in the case of the sheriff's -- the infamous incident in which sheriff's deputies went into the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights and shot his dogs. And the sheriff's office was perceived as being insufficiently sensitive to what happened there.

FISHERRushern Baker is not a hugely charismatic figure. He does not have the schmoozing talents of a Jack Johnson. He hasn't worked the churches in the same way with the same kind of emotional connection. He's somewhat more -- somewhat cooler, more intellectual figure. And yet he's someone who's clearly dedicated to the county and to the idea that it needs a more confident approach. In that way, there is kind of an analogy to what's going on in the District and the sort of pendulum swinging back and forth between the hot, emotional style and the cool rational style. And so that's what we're seeing in Prince George's as well.

NNAMDIWe'll have to see how that turns out for Rushern Baker in Prince George's County, third time in his case being lucky. You can call us if you want to analyze any of the races in the Washington area, 800-433-8850. We're gonna take a short break. If you have already called, stay on the line. We'll try to get to your call. If not, shoot us an e-mail to kojo@wamu.org. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe're deconstructing yesterday's primaries in Maryland and the District of Columbia. We're with Marc Fisher. He's the enterprise editor at The Washington Post. Marc Fisher, what about other members of Mayor Fenty's cabinet? Police Chief Cathy Lanier is the most popular public official in the entire city according to one recent poll. And we had Michelle Rhee on the broadcast, The Politics Hour. She indicated that she probably wouldn't want to work with Vincent Gray. However, when we had Chief Lanier on, Chief Lanier said, I serve at the pleasure of the residents of the District of Columbia. That's gonna be a tough one for Vincent Gray to make, you think?

FISHERAnd Vince Gray has been rather praising of Cathy Lanier with some reservations. I think what you're going to see from Vince Gray is a -- an effort to having much more politically palatable set of tough officials in this administration. If you recall the early days of the Fenty administration, the attorney general, the city administrator, the police chief, the fire chief, the school's chancellor, not a single black appointee in that group. And that sent a very early alienating message to the majority of Washingtonians. So you're not going to see a repeat of that by any means from Vince Gray.

FISHERBut that doesn't mean that he's going to go all the way to the other side of the spectrum. And so if he's going to retain any of the Fenty appointees, I think Cathy Lanier would be the number one likely choice. As far as Michelle Rhee goes, there's one school of thought that says that she will quit any minute now in order to not give Gray the pleasure of sacking her. But there's also a move afoot on the Council by several Council people from sort of all points along the spectrum to ask Vince Gray to keep Michelle Rhee for two years, which would take her to the end of the period of mayoral control of the school system, to sort of give her a chance to finish the job, ideally with a different tone, and then move on to someone else. But that's gonna be a very tough sell. I think Vince Gray wants her out, and I think Michelle Rhee has zero desire to work for him.

NNAMDIHe may want her out. But from everything I have observed about Vince Gray over the last decade or two, he is the kind of individual who is not as much a sacker as he is, somebody who will at least want to have a conversation or two before any sacking takes place. Michelle Rhee indicated that she's not even much prepared to have that conversation.

FISHERNo, she feels that Vince Gray essentially ran against her. She feels -- speaking of disrespect, she feels disrespected by him. And she feels that it was only with the 100 percent total support that Adrian Fenty gave her that she could achieve what she did and go about her job in the way that she did. She has always said that she never wanted to run a school system. She never wanted to be involved in politics because you can only make incremental progress fighting against all of the political -- all of the politics. And in this case, she happened to have the perfect marriage with a mayor, who, as we've now learned, didn't care and didn't pay attention to politics. So it helped her, but it didn't exactly work out for Adrian Fenty.

NNAMDIThe man replacing Vince Gray is chair of the Council, will be Kwame Brown, who overcame a series of damaging reports about his personal finances to ward off former councilmember Vincent Orange. What should we expect from Kwame Brown as a leader on the Council?

FISHERKwame Brown, like Vince Gray, is someone who tries very hard to get along with everybody. Kwame Brown is someone who, unlike Vince Gray, is not a very close student of policy matters. And so we will see someone who, other councilmembers think, is perhaps somewhat more malleable. They like Kwame Brown. They are not entirely respectful of his intellect. And so a number of them, I think, believe that they would be able to manipulate Kwame Brown. But I think Chairman Brown will work quite well with Mayor Gray, and you'll see at least a dramatic improvement in the tone of relations between the mayor and the Council.

NNAMDIIndeed. When Kwame Brown first ran and was elected to office, the general feeling was that he didn't know a great deal about policy matters at all so he was involved in on-the-job training, as you point out. All of his colleagues virtually supported him in this race because, as you say, they may intend to think they can manipulate him, that he's gonna do some on-the-job training again. So we are going to see an evolving Kwame Brown in this chairmanship role on the City Council. A lot of us were watching the at-large race yesterday where incumbent Phil Mendelson had to scramble to beat shadow Sen. Michael D. Brown. Right up until the end, it seemed that there was a real chance that enough people might think Michael D. Brown was Michael A. Brown, the sitting at-large councilmember, and that the confusion was going to spell a loss for Mendelson, but it was a blowout.

FISHERYou know, Kojo, people always say that the media are biased, and there is a bias in the media, and that is the bias toward the great holy cow story. And so the story everybody was rooting for last night was that this guy, Michael Brown, would beat a sitting long-standing, well-respected councilmember simply because of his name. But the voters proved that they are smarter than that, and they did that with the help of an enormous campaign by Mendelson and his supporters to make it clear that the Michael Brown on the ballot, a white man, was not the Michael Brown who is a sitting member of the Council, a black man. And so you had these giant posters all over town of those two photographs, with a giant X over one of the photographs, saying, this is not the guy you think you're voting for. This is the guy. And it was a real point of confusion, which is why, in those earlier polls, Michael Brown was showing leading in the race. And so the Mendelson campaign had to...

NNAMDIIt gives us a new adage. You can't get far in Washington politically by underestimating the intelligence of the Washington, D.C. voters.

FISHERRight. With the big assist from the political strategist business.

NNAMDIIt certainly is. On to Louie in Bethesda, Md. Louie, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

LOUIEYes, thank you. I do question the intelligence of the Washington D.C. voter when they put the education of our children back on the hands of someone that has interest to get back teachers that clearly do not know how to perform and give contracts to government contractors that were charging amounts of money that are just not at par to the competition. So I think that we're going backwards, and it is a big shame. I'll take my answer off the air. Thank you.

NNAMDIMarc?

FISHERWell, you know, that is exactly the fear that I heard expressed, particularly in white areas of the District throughout this campaign, this idea that Vince Gray would take the city back to the era when City Hall was the hiring hall, when the school system spent more -- put more energy into creating jobs for city residents than creating a great educational experience for children. Now, Vince Gray has repeatedly said, I'm not going to take the city backwards. I'm not going to do that.

FISHEROn the other hand, he himself, during his campaign, repeatedly came back to the same question of all these fired teachers, all these fired city workers and this idea that they had somehow been disrespected by the Fenty administration. So he has sent mixed messages, and it is not clear which path he will take. And as I said earlier, there is tremendous pressure, and will be, on him to rehire some of the people who had been let go, and especially to give work in the form of city contracts to allow the local companies that felt completely boxed out by the Fenty administration which went to out-of-town contractors in order to do the rush jobs that created all these new recreation centers, libraries, athletic fields and school renovations.

NNAMDIHere's this e-mail we got from Ron in Ward 7. "I think education is one of the top issues in the city in election. But despite all of the media coverage regarding education reform, education was not the top issue for many voters. And I think that point has been lost especially in the media. Certainly, everyone appreciates new recreation centers and libraries and the ability to renew your driver's license online, but these accomplishments were low-hanging fruit and really did not address the concerns of many of the city's residents." To some extend, I think Ron might be right because what I hear from a lot of people, in particular in African-American communities, is this is really about jobs and employment.

FISHERRight. And, you know, especially east of the river where the unemployment rates are staggering, over 20 percent in Ward 7, over 30 percent in Ward 8. And that is a completely different daily experience from what we would have sitting here in the northwest section of the city. And so that sense of loss, that sense of where do we go now pervaded the city -- eastern parts of the city. And as I went around with the candidates, that's what we heard over and over again. And that did drive the voting every bit as much as these stylistic differences we talked about earlier.

NNAMDIHere's Cima (sp?) in Chevy Chase, Md. Cima, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CIMAHello. I wanted to mention the fact that -- well, at least I see it as a fact -- that a lot of differences on the way people vote is also based on economic status. Because -- it's not necessarily ratio -- but unfortunately, the ratio of poverty or low income is higher among African American. And Fenty basically -- I believe, represented the more well off and happens to be more white population in D.C. And so that economic status or class is also very important how people vote. And you just talked about the fact that southeast, you know, there is such a high unemployment and no matter how many recreation or swimming pools you build in the northwest of D.C. doesn't help those people. Another issue is about the school system...

NNAMDIWell, Cima. Cima, I wanted to address the issue of economics first...

CIMAYes.

NNAMDI...because the term underclass is not in popular use anymore. But it seems to me that during the course of the past 30 years or so, we have not had a mayor in the District of Columbia who has been able to make a significant dent in the poverty race or the conditions of the underclass. We certainly have had mayors and mayoral candidates who addressed or talked about these issues differently. But in fact, in terms of doing anything, I don't see a great deal of evidence that a whole lot has been done.

FISHERWell, I think there's -- there have been -- the last two mayors have made efforts to address that in their own ways. And Tony Williams might...

NNAMDIExpanding the tax base, growing the economy.

FISHERWell, but more than that. Tony Williams changed the face of Southeast Washington. And there is a -- and just an enormous difference in the kind of housing that's available. He did more for homeownership among people who were either in low-paying jobs or even on government support to introduce them to homeownership than any previous mayor. That maybe doesn't take your...

NNAMDIThat got lost in his image.

FISHERIt absolutely got lost. And similarly, Adrian Fenty's efforts to put homeless people into housing got lost in his image, but it was a major significant step forward. So I think both of those mayors did address underclass issues in a very significant way, and yet it was completely lost in his overall impression that they were there for the affluent, that they were creating these shiny new libraries and recreational facilities for people with money, that they were somehow agents of gentrification, which they were, but they were also trying to lift others up.

NNAMDII have time for one more. Here is Barbara in Reston, Va. Barbara, your turn.

BARBARAYes. I just am reminded in this election of the 2000 election between Bush and Gore where the mantra was who would you rather have a beer with? And where Gore and Fenty were both pummeled with the same accusations that they were distant, that they were -- didn't know how to communicate with people, that they were arrogant, et cetera.

NNAMDIBarbara, who would you rather have a beer with, Adrian Fenty or Vincent Gray?

BARBARAI would rather have a beer with Adrian Fenty because I think he really has done something for the District, and I think he would have continued to do something for the District. And I think he realized that he had made some mistakes and that he would have changed his conduct.

NNAMDIMarc Fisher will tell you the problem you have. How likely is it that Adrian Fenty would have a beer with Barbara?

FISHERNot bloody likely. (laugh) And if you did have a beer with him, you'd find that you probably would have to carry the conversation. Because Adrian Fenty, although quite bright and well informed about city matters, was just not -- he's not a comfortable conversationalist. He's own wife, in a profile in The Washington Post over the weekend, said that she -- after her first couple of dates said, does this guy not like me? Because he wasn't conversing with her.

NNAMDIAnd Barbara, the first thing he'll say is make mine a vitamin water. Thank you very much for your call, Barbara. Marc Fisher is enterprise editor of The Washington Post. Marc, thank you very much. Always a pleasure.

FISHERGood to be with you.

NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.