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Subject: Preparing for Power, Barry Fine-Tunes a New Machine;D.C. Leaders Watch as
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 09:18:27 EST
Message-ID: <50.1992Nov22.091827@AmeriCast.com>

Preparing for Power, Barry Fine-Tunes a New Machine;D.C. Leaders
Watch as Former Mayor Applies Oil to New Political Machine<By
Rene Sanchez=Washington Post Staff Writer=

It will be six weeks before Marion Barry, the District's ex-mayor
who was in federal prison for a cocaine conviction at this time
last year, leaps back into politics as council member for the
city's poorest ward.  But already there are abundant signs he is
rebuilding his once-formidable political machine.

Since his crushing victory over longtime council incumbent
Wilhelmina J. Rolark in this fall's Democratic primary, Barry has
discreetly begun to reshape his large but loosely knit band of
supporters in Southeast Washington's Ward 8 - and some scattered
citywide - into a formal political brigade.

In the last month, Barry has formed and met with community coun-
cils in each of the ward's 14 precincts. His new political action
committee is raising money. And he has delegations of Ward 8
residents knocking on doors at the District Building to preach
his cause.

Some associates of Barry say he's laying the groundwork for a
possible mayoral campaign in 1994. Others say Barry simply wants
to reestablish himself as a powerful political player in the city
and to be a broker in disputes between Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly
and council Chairman John A. Wilson (D).

Barry disputed suggestions that he wants to antagonize or topple
Kelly, who often had criticized his record as mayor until she re-
cently made overtures to work with him on such issues as D.C.
statehood. Barry, however, has refused to say unequivocally that
he will not run for mayor again.

"I am just looking at empowering Ward 8 by any means necessary,
and this is only the beginning," he said last week after return-
ing from a post-election vacation in Las Vegas, where he was part
of new heavyweight boxing champion Riddick Bowe's entourage.  "I
am walking back softly," Barry said, "but I want to carry a big
stick." Barry loyalists recently defeated several advisory neigh-
borhood commissioners, who are elected to supervise community is-
sues. His council campaign played a big role in helping elect a
new at-large school board member, Valencia Mohammed, a parent ac-
tivist who has pushed for more Afrocentric teaching in schools.
And he worked to defeat the Congress-mandated referendum on the
death penalty by flooding Ward 8 with "Thou Shall Not Kill" post-
ers.

His delegations from the ward, meanwhile, began meeting a few
weeks ago with council members about their needs and Barry's
agenda.

Barry also has begun to court interest groups uneasy with Kelly
and Wilson. Last month, he spoke at labor union protests against
furloughing D.C. government workers. This past week, he joined
advocates for the homeless in denouncing the city for trying to
close shelters in Foggy Bottom.

Kelly and Wilson have publicly welcomed Barry back into politics
and pledged to work with him. But each is looking warily at his
latest activities.

Wilson has sent signals that though he does not plan to isolate
Barry, he will treat him much like he does any other council
rookie. "If I know Marion Barry, he will keep organizing like
this," Wilson said. "We'll listen, but the moves I make will be
based on a council member's seniority."

Barry has been lobbying council members to let him lead their Hu-
man Services Committee, which oversees a large portion of the
city budget and would put him in close touch with one of his most
loyal constituencies, senior citizens.

 "There's not a ghost of a chance he'll get that," said council
member John Ray (D-At Large).

Still, council members expect that Barry inevitably will play a
leading role on the council because of his intimate knowledge of
the city's budget and because of his skill at mustering large,
loud crowds to help him make demands.

In his council campaign, Barry registered more than 1,200 voters
in Ward 8, which is the poorest section of the city and has been
one of the most apathetic politically. It is also an area that
Barry's many critics say he often ignored in his 12 years as may-
or.

But Barry won record vote totals in both the September primary
and the Nov. 3 general election. His aides are continuing to re-
gister voters - they say their goal is to add 7,000 names to the
ward's voting rolls - while Barry is recruiting those who have
already voted for him into his new organization.

The delegations now meeting with at-large council members are the
first results of that effort. They have gone, usually in 16-
member groups and without Barry, to discuss issues such as crime,
housing and economic development. Some of them had never been in-
side the District Building.

"We want people to realize it's a new day in Ward 8," said Keith
Johnson, a lab technician at a drug-treatment clinic who, with
Barry's help, was just elected to be advisory neighborhood com-
missioner.

"It's not to bully people," Johnson said. "It's to let them know
that from now on, we want to be heard."

Another example of the new political force Barry wants to exert
in Ward 8 came one night a few weeks ago at a community meeting
with police department officials who oversee crime in the
Southeast ward.  Neighborhood leaders said that often only a
dozen or so people attend. Barry stuffed the room with more than
100 supporters.

"No one knows exactly what his plans are," said Concha Johnson, a
former Barry supporter who is a senior-citizens leader in Ward 8.
"But he's definitely trying to oil and to fine-tune a new
machine."

At the same time, Barry is renewing ties with old political al-
lies  throughout the city. He is trying to assemble a citywide
coalition of activists to support his plan to have the council
and Kelly approve legislation requiring the city to give a summer
job to any teenager who wants one. That was his policy as mayor;
Kelly changed it.

Barry declined to discuss how that plan or any other could affect
his political future. "Let people discuss whatever they want," he
said. "What I'm doing in the city is on principle. If it has any
side political benefits, so be it." Council members and civic ac-
tivists widely view Barry as a long shot in the next mayor's race
because many voters believe he has embarrassed and mismanaged the
city and strained its race relations. Others wonder whether he
has had enough time to recover from alcohol and drug addictions.

Some political observers, however, say that the Biblical themes
of redemption Barry used in his council campaign, coupled with
his new Afrocentric wardrobe and fiery populist rhetoric, could
resonate in working-class, churchgoing communities that do not
have strong ties to Kelly or Wilson.

Ted Gay, Kelly's top political organizer, said that Barry's re-
cent moves are smart politically. Like many other political ob-
servers, however, he said that the true measure of the new coun-
cil member's effort won't come until he proves he has the energy
and discipline to sustain it.

"He wants a system in place to exert pressure," Gay said. "That
helps keep people guessing about his plans, and as long as
they're guessing, they're off guard."

The Rev. Willie Wilson, pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church in
Anacostia and a close adviser to Barry, said the former mayor
simply "wants to have great impact again." Wilson called the 1994
mayor's race  "always a possibility" for Barry. The bottom line,
Wilson said, is that Barry "does not plan on being ignored."

02:56 11-22

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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