Exclusive: Vince Gray Is Not Going Away

First of all, all of you should be aware that former Mayor Vincent Gray knows the exact date of this year’s D.C. Democratic primary by heart. [Full disclosure: this columnist and the former mayor have known each other since their college days at George Washington University.]

During an exclusive interview with him last week, as I struggled with the precise date, he eagerly informed me that it was June 14. Is this not a harbinger of things to come?

Gray would not commit to stating he would definitely run for a seat on the District Council. But he did say the following: “I love public service.” Now, the question is: Will it be in his home ward (7) or District-wide (for an at-large spot)? I would bet it will be in Ward 7.

He bluntly said, “People want change out here.” The incumbent Council member Yvette Alexander, a former Gray protégé, succeeded him after he moved on to become Council chairman.

Some observers (including me) presume that if he wins the Ward 7 Council seat, he will use it as a stepping stone to run for mayor in 2018.

With some intensity, Gray told me that this was not his plan. When I pushed him, he made the point clearly: “No stepping stone.” But when asked if he would issue a Sherman (“If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve”), he refused.

The former mayor is upset and angry over the four-and-a-half-to-five-year investigation that he has endured. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said he looked on the entire matter as “nothing that complex” and “pretty straightforward.” It all came down to “Was I aware of the situation,” he said. “Was I involved?” To that central question, Gray emphatically has said, “I wasn’t.”

When I inquired about his repeated meetings with Jeff Thompson (who pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing), Gray said that Thompson first declined when he approached him to help out with Gray’s campaign. But then, Gray recounted, Thompson called him and said, “I’d like to meet with you.” Gray admitted that there were two more meetings with Thompson, but said that Thompson “never asked me for a budget, nor did I give him one.”

Gray accused former U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen, who investigated and indicted individuals associated with the Gray 2010 campaign, of practicing “voter suppression.” He feels that, because Machen held a press conference three weeks before the April 1 Democratic primary, voters in Wards 5, 7 and 8 assumed that Machen would charge Gray and said to themselves, “I won’t show up and vote. Why bother?”

Vince Gray is adamantly proud of his record as mayor, pointing to education reform, fiscal prudence (he left his term with the city having “$1.87 billion in the bank”) and economic development, especially in the “east end of the city.” He is no fan of Mayor Muriel Bowser. He starkly commented about her: “I haven’t seen a vision for the city.” The citizens of D.C. are “still waiting,” he said.

It’s my opinion that Gray feels wronged. The only way to make it up is for him to jump back into the fray. That the U.S. Attorney General for the District of Columbia closed the case was vindication—but that alone will not do. He seeks to be back in the game. Many, many years ago, I watched him play intramural basketball at the Tin Tabernacle at GW. He always went straight to the basket, and he usually scored. That won’t change.

Political analyst Mark Plotkin is a contributor to the BBC on American politics and a contributor to TheHill.com. Reach him at markplotkindc@gmail.com.