Bolden Blog

I am not a Bolden supporter in all likelihood, as I consider myself a progressive. Phil Mendelson, the at-large councilmember is progressive, and he made his bones chaining himself to trees or a bulldozer in an attempt to prevent egregious development in NW (although maybe the patrons of the Wisconsin Avenue Cinemas don't agree).

I think it's pretty laughable that someone like A. Scott Bolden, past president of the DC Chamber of Commerce, a partner with the law firm ReedSmith, is making himself out to be a friend of the poor and downtrodden. (In fact I burst out at a public meeting about a year ago when Mr. Bolden was doing such a schtick--once my hypocrisy meter hits 70% my problems with "impulse control" become evident. His response, angrily, "I don't know you. How can you say...? etc.").

While ReedSmith has an extensive real estate practice, Mr. Bolden works on criminal defense matters. Still and all, I can't believe that the strongly developer-oriented aspects of the ReedSmith real estate practice group haven't influenced Mr. Bolden's take on such issues.

However, Mr. Bolden has launched a blog, and that says something. He also is out everywhere he can be to pump the flesh. My man Phil needs to get more active.

The developer interests keep putting up candidates to get rid of Mr. Mendelson. Beverly Wilbourne was their candidate twice, but she just didn't have the connections to the community. Mr. Bolden is a much more dangerous candidate, he takes every opportunity to campaign (i.e., he was shaking hands on the steps of the Convention Center as people were walking into the Citizens Summit last November) but to me he is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing.

Index Keywords: Washington-DC-Election-2006