Sam Smith - In 1974, the capital colony of DC got to elect a
mayor and city council for the first time in over a century. Although
the city's registration was overwhelmingly Democratic, the young DC
Statehood Party, which your editor had helped to start four years
earlier, decided to run a hefty slate. I missed the convention, having
gone to Philadelphia to visit relatives. There I received a phone call
from Jay Matthews of the Washington Post informing me that I had been
selected as the party's candidate for city council chair. I replied with
one of my least felicitous responses to a press query, "Oh shit, I knew
I shouldn't have left town." (The Post ran the response without the
expletive). After a week of reflection, I decided to stick to
journalism, but couldn't resist holding a news conference at which I
attacked my foregone opponent as a "Republicrat" and described the mayor
and city council chair as "the political equivalent of Fruit Loops,
sweet-tasting cereal circles comprised largely of additives and
artificial flavoring wrapped around exactly nothing." Nationally
syndicated black journalist Chuck Stone took an avuncular interest in my
brief campaign, writing after its demise: "The outside chance for a
white city council chairman evaporated when Sam Smith, the irreverent
and witty publisher and editor of the bi-weekly DC Gazette, withdrew
after a draft (which included a large number of blacks) had been mounted
on his behalf. 'Oh dear,' fretted a matronly white woman who had
organized a candidates night, 'we did want so much to have a least one
white candidate for that office.'"
(Twenty-three years
later I would be approached by some Statehood Green leaders about
running for mayor. I asked my youngest son what he thought. "Terrible
idea," he said. Well, if I do run, I asked, what job do you want in my
administration? He replied, "I want to be the incorrible son who gets
all the bad publicity." I didn't run)
