Abstract

Marion Barry's Amazing Race

Marion Barry is alive and well and living in a power vacuum in D.C. The former mayor and current City Councilman is running for mayor again. More than that, he's running a close race for the September 13 Democratic primary in a city that's 90 percent Democratic. According to an early August poll by Black Entertainment Television, City Councilman John Ray has 32 percent of registered Democrats and Barry has 29 percent, a virtual dead heat. The resurrection of Barry who just four years ago was driven from office and sent to prison on a six-month drug rap after being portrayed on national television as a lecherous crack-head, is providing great theater in a city whose local affairs are mostly lost in the glare from the Capitol. Ultimately, however, it is a kind of political distress signal, a sign of just how narrow the alternatives have become in one of America's premier black cities.