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| Sinclair Skinner, field coordinator for Adrian Fenty’s mayoral campaign, continues to draw criticism after circulating posters and fliers depicting Jim Graham as a devil gloating over the lynching of a black man. |
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HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: LOU CHIBBARO J COMMENTS
 
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Ray said they have worked as volunteers on the Fenty campaign for more than a year and see Fenty as one of the city’s strongest pro-gay politicians.
“Adrian became the first candidate to support full marriage rights for gays because he truly feels it is a right we should have,” said Ray.
Graham, who has yet to endorse a candidate for mayor, said he admires Fenty for the work he has done as a Ward 4 councilmember.
But Graham said Skinner “didn’t do good things,” and he is puzzled over why Fenty has kept him on his campaign staff.
“My advice to Adrian is to drop him as rapidly as possible so that we could be done with this distraction and we could deal with real issues,” Graham said.
In another election-related development, veteran D.C. gay activist Phil Pannell, who is running for the city’s shadow U.S. Senate seat, and Graham, who is running for re-election, won the endorsement of the Gertrude Stein Democratic club on Aug. 14, capturing 80 percent and 79 percent of the vote by club members respectively.
Pannell and Graham won their endorsements in the last of a series of forums the Stein Club has held for candidates running for various offices in the city’s Sept. 12 Democratic primary.
In marked contrast to Pannell and Graham’s lopsided support among Stein members, candidates competing for Council seats in Wards 3, 5 and 6 struggled to reach a threshold of 60 percent of the members’ vote required for an endorsement under the club’s rules.
Ward 5 Council candidate Harry Thomas Jr. and Ward 6 Council candidate Tommy Wells edged past the 60 percent margin to win the club’s endorsement. Wells, a member of the D.C. school board, has been a longtime supporter of gay and AIDS issues, according to Stein Club members from Ward 6.
Ward 3 candidate Erik Gaull received 59.7 percent of the vote, falling short of an endorsement by just a fraction of a percentage point. He told club members he would promote his strong showing as a sign of the club’s “seal of approval,” even though he could not claim an endorsement. His closest rival, former D.C. Department of Transportation official Bill Rice, received 26 percent of the vote in a second ballot runoff against Gaull.
Eight of the nine Ward 3 candidates turned out for the Stein forum. Stein Club officers and members who live in Ward 3 praised each of the nine, saying they were all highly qualified and expressed strong support for gay- and AIDS-related issues.
Club officials cautioned gay voters that the
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