And after my husband died, he came over to the house and stayed the whole day to offer condolences,” she recalled. “Moore and I became good friends, I think, and for all that you could say about Marion, he was a phenomenal politician. Although she took on Barry a number of times, getting the highest percentage of votes (42 percent in 1994), time often healed all political wounds, or most of them. There may be that “from defeat to defeat” reference in the title of the book, but there are also a few wins, most notably her first one, when she decided to run for Council in the Republican primary against the Rev. Jerry Moore, an ally of then-“mayor for life” Marion Barry. She not only won - with fierce opposition from a flustered Barry - but she did it by running a write-in campaign. It was, needless to say, an upset of major proportions.īut here’s the thing. Schwartz was elected to the Board of Education, twice, before deciding to take the next step forward. It’s harder for older people, for low-income people and the homeless.” That diversity, that’s a treasure of this city. It’s especially tough on the working class, and the notion of affordable housing. It’s become richer, sure, but that sense of neighborhoods, of variety, that’s starting to disappear now. “I miss that, to some extent. The city is losing a lot of its diversity now, it’s just not the same.
#Carol schwartz dc full
“To me, it was such a rich town, so full of life and everything this country stood for,” she said. It then had a powerful schoolboard, which was a jumping-off point for many political wannabes, Schwartz included. This is where I wanted to be, to spend my life, to make my way.”Īnd she did. Politically, it isn’t exactly like she made it easy on herself. Washington, on the verge of statehood, was a Democrat-dominated political entity that would have a Council that left room for non-Democrats. “I was engaged, mind you, back in Texas, but in a way I dropped everything. She fell in love with Washington on her first visit in 1966. Schwartz grew up hard, working in Oak Ridge, Tennessee Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and finally in Midland, Texas, where, raised in the Jewish faith, she got a taste of anti-Semitism. We talked by phone this time, but I’ve seen her at work - in her office at the Wilson Building when she was on the Council, out on the street carrying election signs, dancing on election night as results streamed across a television screen the night George W. The result has been major league and hefty, 744 pages of memoir, stories, anecdotes (plus notes), pictures and musings. She told one writer it could have been 1,500 pages, and it’s hard to argue with that. Schwartz has been working on the book in the aftermath of her defeat in the 2014 election, won by Bowser, who is up for reelection next year. And if there are people that don’t know her, that omission has been taken care of with the coming of her book “Quite a Life! From Defeat to Defeat … and Back.” The book’s subtitle is “The story of a Republican (now an Independent) gal from Texas who tried hard to become Democratic Washington, D.C.’s Mayor.” This process repeated itself later when we took the 42 bus to Adams Morgan, during which a woman introduced her to the rest of the passengers as a candidate for mayor. People gave her a cheerful round of applause.
She seems a person of moving parts, hopscotching through topics and moods like a cast member of “Singing in the Rain.” Sitting there talking, you got a sense of who she was and even what she meant to the city. People kept saying hello. “I’m voting for you,” a middle-aged black woman said, coming up for a greeting. It was one of those casual, midweek afternoons in Washington, tourists jostling with regulars, young and not-so-young professionals making their way through the book stacks, having a late lunch. Schwartz was running as an independent against fellow independent David Catania and Democrat Muriel Bowser, the odds-on favorite at the time, having vanquished her main rival, incumbent Vincent Gray (also a Democrat). We talked about the campaign, which featured some unique things.
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