Marie Johns should have taken the advice offered to her early in the mayoral campaign: Shoot a little lower — maybe the at-large seat on the D.C. Council. But as a retired president of a major telecommunications company, she couldn’t clip her ambition. She couldn’t imagine that she hadn’t won friends in all the right places. Didn’t she receive an award from the Greater Washington Board of Trade?
Hadn’t she helped the D.C. Chamber of Commerce reconstruct its board-of-trade wannabe marquee into its own unique banner with celebrity draw? Wasn’t she better than the neighborhood bank, passing around Verizon’s money to help nonprofit organizations?
What went wrong?
Long-term memory loss. It’s a serious disease in politics.
Even Mayor Anthony Williams forgot the woman — although she is one of his wife’s good friends and served him ably on those ghastly task forces, sundry councils and groups such as the National Capital Revitalization Corporation.
Still, in some sections of the city, it’s “Marie who?”
Johns miscalculated the connection she had with the electorate because of her corporate position. She thought it would be all accolades, palms and genuflection.
Johns didn’t understand the last experience the city had with a woman mayor and former corporate executive, Sharon Pratt (then-Kelly). Pratt was deadly — like the fifth-quarter tax year she advocated to get the District through the financial crisis she created.
And though Johns has sought to distance herself from that history, it remains fresh and sour for too many citizens. (This may be why politicians hate functional long-term memory; it can be fatal.)
The name recognition handicap and the Kelly corporate proximity have been exacerbated by Johns’ flaccid campaign operation. Squandering opportunity, Johns has not distinguished herself among the gang of five. She has offered 1970s public policy solutions to 21st century problems. She also has become Miss Jane One-note.
Ask a question about neighborhood economic development, the answer: education. Ask about financial solvency, it’s education. Ask about the crime rate, it’s education.
She should have announced for the D.C. Board of Education. Now, there’s a race you’d love to see: D.C. City Administrator Robert Bobb and Marie Johns slugging it out for president.
Johns has done OK — maybe better than expected. She has moved from the bottom of the pack to the middle.
When she tells potential voters her personal story of transformation from a hardscrabble beginning
0to hard-won success through sheer determination and divine assistance, she connects with them. When she says she wants them to see “my heart,” they fall in love.
Time is short — less than 100 days before the democratic primary in September.
And fortunately, there aren’t enough lovers or love in the District to carry Johns over the threshold of the mayoral suite.
Jonetta Rose Barras is the political analyst for WAMU radio’s D.C. “Politics Hour with Kojo and Jonetta.”
