It has been four and a half years since the FBI videotaped Barry sucking on a crack pipe in a dimly lit Washington hotel room – a moment that humiliated him and the city as well. Now he is peddling redemption, especially his own. Everyone in town knows Barry’s story: his arrest and trial, his six months in jail, his treatment for drug and alcohol problems. In 1992 he made a successful bid to become city councilman for Ward 8, across the Anacostia River. Ward 8 is the Washington tourists never see: overwhelmingly black, predominantly low income, filled with urban pathology and despair. Its residents know what it means to fall from grace, and they understand the Biblical imagery Barry is using now. “You know, as I do, that God has a way when you’re in the valley of . . . molding you,” he told an audience of black clergy. “He’s certainly done it to me. He’s taken me from the mountaintop down to the valley, out of the valley and back to the mountaintop.”
Whether Barry is actually going back to the mountaintop is anybody’s guess. According to a new poll by The Washington Post, the former mayor is now in a dead heat, 34 percent to 33 percent, with Councilman John Ray as they approach the Sept. 13 Democratic primary. There are seven candidates in the race, including incumbent Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly. After four bumpy years in office, she is running third with 14 percent. So that leaves Ray – a lackluster campaigner – and Barry, who is not. And since the primary is winner-take-all, it is still possible that Barry will pull off one of the more remarkable political comebacks in the history of this or any city.
But maybe not. Despite his popularity with low-income voters, Barry is opposed by about half of the city’s residents – Ray’s 33 percent, plus Kelly’s 14 percent, plus at least some of the remaining 10 percent now split among the other candidates. That means Barry must place his hopes on newly registered voters if his comeback is to succeed – a dicey proposition for any politician. It also means he is depending on the racially tinged resentments of Washington’s have-nots. “He’s damaged goods. He has no credibility left,” says Councilman James Nathanson, who represents the affluent whites of Ward 3. “The people supporting him are those who feel left out – and those who want to give the finger to the establishment.”
With its crime, its foundering public schools and its deepening fiscal mess, Washington today is a city in crisis. Barry knows it, and says he’s just the guy to restore confidence and hope. “I prayed on it,” he says. “and came to the conclusion that I should offer my leadership skills, my courage, my strength, my compassion, my wisdom. I’m the best candidate.” But the real question in this election, says Ken Cummins, a columnist for the alternative City Paper, is Barry himself. “Who knows if he’s recovered?” Cummins says. What the voters must now decide is whether they’re ready to take the risk of finding out.
