Stark end to polarizing tenure
On the day after Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson was reelected in 2006 - the fourth time that residents had elected him to a countywide position - he wearily explained what accounted for his victory.</br></br>Dogged for years by reports that state and federal authorities were investigating his relationships with developers and his hiring of friends for public office, Johnson will leave office next month a deeply polarizing figure.</br></br>His detractors have long said his style of politics hurts the county's image and its efforts to spur business.</br></br>For critics, that impression will be cemented by Johnson's arrest Friday, along with his wife, Leslie, just three weeks before his final term in office is to end. He was charged with destroying evidence and witness tampering.</br></br>But for his supporters, he has remained a popular figure - an unfailing campaigner with an unparalleled ability to connect with voters. They were inspired by Johnson's life story - he grew up poor in rural and segregated South Carolina only to graduate from Howard Law School and get elected to lead the nation's wealthiest majority-African-American jurisdiction.