An Underdog Campaign With Teeth

It's 8 a.m., and D.C. mayoral candidate Marie C. Johns is prowling the sidewalk above the Van Ness Metro station in a black pantsuit and tiger-striped flats. With a wide smile, she reaches into the stream of stone-faced commuters swimming up from the trains and lands a prize: an undecided voter.

Sixty seconds later, Janet Jalloul, an English teacher at the University of the District of Columbia, walks away impressed by Johns's focus on education. "This is the first time I've ever even heard her name!" Jalloul marvels, adding that Johns will now get her "serious consideration."

With her easy charm, plain talk and thoughtful ideas about the city's most pressing problems, Johns, a retired corporate executive making her first run for elected office, has emerged as a credible alternative to the more experienced front-runners in the Democratic race for mayor, D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp and Ward 4 council member Adrian M. Fenty, according to insiders in the Cropp and Fenty campaigns and other political observers.

Business leaders and some big donors say they are looking closely at Johns, the former president of Verizon Washington. Polls conducted for Johns's opponents show her rising to third place, ahead of Ward 5 council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. and lobbyist Michael A. Brown, though her support remains in the single digits. Johns is wowing crowds almost nightly at candidate forums, winning praise for her intelligence and common-sense style.

"She's offering real solutions that are like a mayor would have to have, not just campaign promises," Capitol Hill resident Rich Carlson said after watching Johns debate her opponents in Ward 6.

Still, with less than four months until the Sept. 12 Democratic primary, Johns remains virtually unknown among the wider pool of D.C. voters, putting her at a huge competitive disadvantage, political analysts say. Despite an aggressive street campaign, a cutting-edge Web site, a video blog, a weekly public-access TV show, countless debate appearances and mobile billboards bearing a catchy new slogan ("Different. Real. Better."), most people Johns meets on the campaign trail don't know her name.

Johns is undeterred.

"It's been an exhilarating experience, going from 'Marie Johns? Who the hell is she?' to people really beginning to pay attention to my campaign," she said. As for the pollsters, "I would ask them to watch our dust as we zoom by."

Johns likes to point out that front-runner status has never been a good predictor of victory in the District. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) wasn't even in the race by this point in 1998. And in 1990, Sharon Pratt (D) overcame a poor showing in the polls to defeat front-runner John Ray.

Pollster Ron Lester, who helped run Pratt's campaign, said Johns has the same potential.

"Between Adrian and Linda, you probably have half of the electorate committed. And you've got the other 50 percent sitting out there looking for alternatives," Lester said. "Marie kind of needs a perfect-storm scenario, because she's starting out so far behind. But is it possible? Yes."

Poll numbers aren't the only similarity between Johns and Pratt, a businesswoman who at the time was also running her first campaign. The city slouched toward bankruptcy during Pratt's tenure, and Johns's detractors warn that her inexperience in government could endanger the District's hard-won economic recovery.