Am I the only person in this entire city who misses Marion Barry during the homestretch of a mayoral race?
The District has had races for mayor only eight times, beginning with Walter Washington’s win in 1974. Marion Barry has run and won four times. I am addicted to his mesmerizing, if somewhat garbled, oratory. I had become accustomed to following him on the campaign trail and hearing supporters yell his name on street corners across town.
Barry may have run the government into the ground, but he was great copy. How many chief executives leave a trail of sex, drugs and late-night meanderings for reporters?
What I will not miss is Marion Barry’s brand of racial politics. When cornered, Barry would play the race card. As soon as he slapped it on the table, racial tension would rise across the city. Some of the most ugly moments between the races came down in the summer of 1990, when Barry was on trial for cocaine possession and assorted conspiracies. You could taste the fear in the grocery line and sense it when parking a car.
It’s been uphill since Barry won in 1994 and told white voters in Ward 3 to “get over it.” Since Cora Masters, then his wife, derisively dubbed Tony Williams “Mr. Bow Tie,” which led to blacks wondering if Mayor Williams was “too white.”
Williams ran a color-blind government. He hired top bureaucrats with more attention to their qualifications rather than their skin color. Of his many talented lieutenants, my favorites were Dan Tangherlini, a white guy who ran transportation, and city administrator Robert Bobb, the grandson of slaves who demanded excellence across his agencies.
In racial terms, Tony Williams’ eight years in office detoxed the city from Marion Barry’s 16 years of bad blood.
Now what?
The mayoral election has been blessedly free of racial attacks and innuendo — so far. When Council Chair Linda Cropp felt threatened by poll numbers that put her 10 points behind Ward 4 Council Member Adrian Fenty, she went on the attack. Her negative ads on television and in the mail marked the first openly negative campaign in D.C.’s young political history.
But at least she didn’t play the race card.No one has had the temerity or the stupidity to question Adrian Fenty’s racial qualifications. One can only imagine what a cornered Marion Barry would have made of Fenty’s background, seeing as his mother is Italian.
If we see a descent into racial politics, it will come in the city council races. At the moment, seven of the 13 council members are white. At the moment, the contest between incumbent at-large member Phil Mendelson and lawyer, A. Scott Bolden, could be the determining factor. So far, the candidates have risen above race.
It is a testament to the maturation of D.C. politics that race-baiting is in our past. And when Marion Barry has offered his support to candidates, he got the stiff arm. Getting kissed by Barry is now the kiss of death.
Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at [email protected].
