This is one of our favorite pictures of Ron Moten. (Photo: Jay Westcott)

Ron Moten is many things. The founder of Peaceoholics. An inspiring redemption story. A go-go fan. A strong supporter of incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty. A crony, according to Vince Gray. And a biblical scholar of sorts. 

But is he a Fenty campaign strategist and decider of election law?

In recent articles, The Washington Post has elevated Moten, who isn't on the campaign payroll, to a position in which he's apparently David Axelrod to Fenty's Barack Obama. (Fenty opponent Vince Gray's campaign has said similar things, referring to Moten as "a top Fenty adviser" in a press release.)

From an Aug. 11 blog post:

Fenty also appears to be giving Peaceoholics co-founder Ronald Moten free rein to act as a surrogate and strategist.

Then this comes from a Post story yesterday:

At the urging of Ronald Moten, a longtime friend of Fenty's who has become a chief strategist of his campaign and is leading the go-go promotions, the mayor recently blocked a bill that would have made it a crime to pay people to vote.

Finally, in a blog post yesterday:

Ronald Moten, a strategist for Fenty's reelection campaign, is a co-founder of Peaceoholics. Since Fenty took office in 2007, Peaceoholics has received more than $10 million in city contracts, including several million dollars from DYRS.

It's unusual for a chief strategists to go unpaid, and even more unusual for campaigns to pick reformed felons to play that role. And was Moten really behind the Fenty veto of the vote-buying bill? We thought both these things were worth a look.

When asked if Moten is a campaign strategist, Fenty campaign spokesman Sean Madigan has a simple answer: "No."

"Ron is a volunteer on the campaign and he's been working hard on our behalf," Madigan said. "He's reaching out to a lot of groups that haven't been involved in the election process before."

Nikita Stewart, who wrote the Post story along with Tim Craig, said Moten's expanded role made the paper feel comfortable with the "chief strategist" label.

"Ron has been given more responsibilities, especially with the go-go effort, which has been a main thrust of Fenty's campaign," she said, also citing Moten's work as an organizer at the Ward 4 and Ward 8 Democratic straw polls.

Stewart also said no one had taken issue with the label.

"We've been needled about it, but we haven't been asked for a correction," she said.

Madigan also denied that Fenty vetoed the vote-buying bill specifically at the urging of Moten. He said the mayor thought changing the rules of the election 60 days out was "a conflict of interest at its very core."

"I have no idea where they got that," Madigan said of the Post's unattributed assertion that Moten was responsible for the veto.

"Moten lobbied the mayor to veto it," Stewart wrote in a follow-up e-mail. "We reported on that from the beginning."

As for the man himself, Moten said in an interview that his role was to connect campaign staffers to groups Fenty couldn't reach otherwise, especially young people; he cites his go-go concerts as part of that outreach. Moten said the events had registered 2,000 voters. (In addition to the events, Moten has recorded a series of songs endorsing the mayor.)

Moten also stressed that he didn't only recently become involved with District politics, noting that he has worked with Marion Barry and Gray in the past.

And does that work qualify him as a strategist?

"If I was a professor and I looked at the work I was doing, I would say I was a strategist," he said. "So, I'm a strategist."

Fair enough. And — we checked with Politico editor in chief John Harris on this — really anyone can claim the title strategist. But, the Post definitely upped the ante when it deemed Moten a chief strategist. That title probably belongs to people like Madigan and Fenty campaign manager John Falcicchio, both of whom are on the campaign payroll (Madigan earned $10,000 in the last reporting period and Falcicchio who earned $11,000) and are have positions with set responsibilities. 

And there isn't any solid evidence that Moten tipped the balance in Fenty's decision to block the election law change. "Lobbying" the mayor to do something is a lot different than being the sole reason he did it.

In this case, the Post assertions were Only Kind of True.