Of the 10 mayoral candidates who have qualified for the Sept. 15th primary ballot, only four – D.C. City Council members Harold Brazil, Kevin Chavous and Jack Evans and former D.C. Chief Financial Officer Anthony Williams — were invited by WIN to participate in the forum, a move that angered some of the other candidates.

Democratic candidates Jeffery Gildenhorn, Sylvia Robinson-Green and Osie Thorpe as well as Republicans Carol Schwartz and James Caviness and Statehood candidate John Gloster were not invited to attend.

The Rev. Lionel Edmonds, co-chair of WIN, told the assembled audience that the criteria for selecting candidates was "organized money and organized people."

"That means the only votes that count are green and have George Washington’s face on them," said Gloster, standing outside the rally.

WIN forum organizers said they sent form letters requesting biographical information to all the candidates but only invited five (Brazil, Chavous, Evans, Williams and Jeffery Gildenhorn) to be interviewed in person. Of those five, all but Gildenhorn were invited to participate in the forum.

Martin Trimbull of WIN said that Gildenhorn was asked not to attend because "we couldn’t see any broad support for him."

"This is a democracy, and as far as I’m concerned anyone who makes the ballot should be invited to that forum," Gildenhorn said in response to being left out.

Trimbull told The Common Denominator only "serious" candidates were asked to attend the event. He could not specify how WIN defined a "serious" candidate other than someone with "organized people and money."

Edmonds later said a serious candidate was "the kind of candidate that has a chance of winning."

Gildenhorn disagreed with that assessment.

"As a serious candidate, I have been at every debate and forum," he said, noting that he was the first person to declare his candidacy for mayor.

When Trimbull was told that none of the candidates interviewed recalled being told about WIN’s "serious candidate" criteria, he said they weren’t paying attention.

"They don’t focus, buddy," he said. "They live in the moment."

Peggy Armstrong, Anthony Williams’ campaign press secretary, said she sat in on the meeting between Wiliams and WIN and that WIN organizers never mentioned their selection criteria.

"It was my understanding the people who participated were those who chose to participate" by returning WIN’s questionnaire, she said.

Chavous’ campaign staff also said they were unaware the WIN forum was not open to all the legally qualified mayoral candidates.

"That was not in the parameters they set out for us attending," said Chavous press secretary Jim Allen. "If that were true, I would know about it."

He said had the campaign known the forum was not open to all the candidates, it may have affected Chavous’s decision to attend.

Trimbull also said that "unresponsive" candidates were not asked to interview for the forum.

"If they didn’t respond to our letter, we weren’t going to go chasing after them," Trimbull said. He characterized the mayoral campaign of Councilwoman Carol Schwartz, R-At Large, as being among the "unresponsive."

"I think it just got lost in the shuffle," Schwartz said of the WIN invitation. Schwartz was in the audience at the event but left shortly after the forum began.

"It’s rather frustrating to see this," Gloster said, standing outside the forum. He said just because some candidates are not well-known Democrats doesn’t mean they should be excluded from any forum.

The WIN rally was a sharp contrast to the League of Women Voters mayoral forum the next night at which nine mayoral candidates participated – every qualified candidate except Sylvia Robinson-Green.

According to Luci Murphy, D.C. chapter president, the League’s only criteria was that participants had to be a declared candidate for a political party’s Sept. 15th primary election.

"If Umoja had fielded a candidate, we certainly would have invited them," Murphy said.

"I have never been disinvited to a forum or debate" until this one, said Gildenhorn. But he said he was putting the matter behind him.

"If someone doesn’t want me there, I’m not going to call and debate them."

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator