Mark Plotkin Whigs Out By Steve Hendrix Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 2, 2000

Mark Plotkin doesn't do tea. "I'm not sure this place is a good fit for me," says Plotkin, uncharacteristically soft-spoken in the elegant East Room of the Williamsburg Inn. All around him, nice people in resort wear murmur in small groups. Under a massive brass chandelier, a woman plinks softly on a piano. Plotkin sips from a petite china cup; the plate balanced on his knee is piled high with more cookies than seems quite polite. "It's too quiet."

Finally he pops up and strides over to the one person making any noise--the piano player. He begins firing requests at her with the same pugnacious style he uses to interview D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and other guests on his radio show, "The D.C. Politics Hour With Mark Plotkin," broadcast weekly on public station WAMU. "Can you play 'Happy Days Are Here Again'?" he asks. "How about 'The Yellow Rose of Texas'? We'll dedicate that to [Texas Sen.] Kay Bailey Hutchinson. How about 'Oklahoma!'? That's for [Oklahoma Rep.] Ernest Istook."

Lawmakers like Hutchinson and Istook, whom Plotkin sees as obstacles to full political rights for Washington citizens, are never far from his mind, or his mouth. He talks to anyone and everyone about what he sees as the outrageous injustice being done to the disenfranchised District. Waiters, doormen, fellow guests--all are treated to a spot lecturette. "Did you know that citizens of Washington pay full federal taxes but don't have a vote in Congress?" he asks the Williamsburg Inn's baffled but poised front-desk clerk. It takes a lot to shake the poker face of a hotel that has hosted Queen Elizabeth, a Japanese emperor and half a dozen U.S. presidents. Plotkin looks around the lobby, a tableau of Old South gentility. "It's beautiful," he admits. "They subdue you with beauty."

But Mark Plotkin came to talk. As a former Democratic Party activist, twice-failed politician (two doomed runs for the D.C. Council) and a professional radio commentator, he talks all the time, of course. But the rhetoric of Williamsburg in particular is much in his thoughts lately as D.C. prepares to change its license plate slogan from the bland "Celebrate and Discover" to the historically evocative "Taxation Without Representation."

"The American Revolution isn't over," Plotkin says. "There still is a colony in this country--Washington, D.C. I want to find out what Thomas Jefferson has to say about that."

Finished with tea and settled into a room of sumptuous upholstery and thick white bathrobes, Plotkin sets out in search of a Founding Father, but not before stopping at the tennis courts to set up a game with the local pro. A player in sweat-soaked whites wanders over to the fence where Plotkin is grilling the club receptionist on constitutional history. "Are you Mark Plotkin?" the player asks. "I used to listen to your show all the time when I lived in Gaithersburg. I always thought you were black."

A delighted Plotkin goes into full debate mode, running through his usual litany of outrages: D.C. citizens can't select their own judges; they don't have a voting representative in the same Congress that can effectively veto any D.C. law; they pay federal taxes. The tennis player's response? "They should move."

Plotkin stares at him a moment, then smiles. "That's the second-most offensive argument against statehood," he says. "The first is that it will mess up the flag."

His tennis date fixed, Plotkin sets off across Francis Street into Colonial Williamsburg proper, the carefully restored neighborhoods where Nikes and knickers happily coexist. He's on his way to buy a hat--a Johnny Tremain tricorner to help capture that insurgent fervor he's looking for--when he runs into a full-fledged insurgency. Eighteenth-century hotheads are assembling a citizen militia from the ranks of tourists milling round the village commons. With a lot of rousing "Hip, hip, huzzahs!" men in cotton tunics and teenagers in flip-flops march for their right to bear toy muskets. "Finally, some civil unrest," says Plotkin. "I admire their militancy, but I suppose this wouldn't be a good time to bring up gun control."

Several hours later, he gets what he's looking for--a face-to-face encounter with an American Freedom Fighter. It's not Jefferson, but it is someone who can appreciate single-minded zealotry. Mark Plotkin, meet Patrick Henry.

"Your servant, sir," says the ponytailed firebrand of "Give me liberty or give me death" fame. In the shadow of the Governor's Palace, with a crowd quickly gathering, Plotkin shakes hands across the centuries. "It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Henry. I've always considered you the Abbie Hoffman of your day."

At first, it doesn't go well. Henry--played by actor Richard Schuman with the scholarly accuracy that is a Williamsburg trademark--stuns Plotkin with assertions that democracy is dangerous, the income tax an atrocity and voting a privilege, not a right. But when Plotkin asks what he would say if Williamsburg, as the capital of Virginia, were denied representation in the House of Burgesses, Henry reacts with satisfying umbrage.

"Why, that is tyranny, sir," cries Henry, "almost the very definition of tyranny. I would find it an abomination to God and to nature. Why should not their voices be heard?"

Plotkin's turn. "There is a politician of my era, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, who says my city doesn't need an elected representative because all the Congress represents us."

Henry answers without pause: "That, sir, is the folly that comes from giving women the franchise." The crowd roars. Plotkin beams.

Back at the Williamsburg Inn, seated on the stone patio and relaxing after a long swim in the pool, the urbanite radical grudgingly succumbs to the charm of dusk in Old Virginia. "I'm starting to like this place," Plotkin says as he looks at the long shadows cast over the golf course. A martini has just been delivered, and in 20 minutes a hotel van will take him to dinner at the historically correct Kings Arm Tavern. "Statehood can wait until tomorrow."

Tomorrow doesn't bring statehood but it does, finally, bring Thomas Jefferson. After breakfast from the groaning buffet of the inn's white-tablecloth Regency Room, Plotkin gathers with a few hundred other tourists for Jefferson's regular public audience in the Palace Gardens. During the wait for the great man, Plotkin works the crowd. He's commiserating with some residents of Puerto Rico, who also have no vote in Congress ("But at least we don't have to pay federal taxes," notes Carlos Martinez), when a buzz builds from near the palace. A tall, ginger-haired gentleman in Colonial garb and dignified mien is stalking through the crowd.

Jefferson, as played by Bill Barker, has become one of Williamsburg's most popular attractions. Not only does Barker bear an eerie physical likeness to the third president, he has gained a national reputation as a Jefferson scholar. His specialty is taking queries from a modern audience and spinning them into questions he can answer with historical accuracy.

Jefferson mounts a platform, and after a long address on the news of the day (the day being April 21, 1775, the news being the royal governor's brazen confiscation of the colony's gunpowder), he takes questions on slavery, personal financial responsibility and the rigors of travel between Williamsburg and Monticello. When Plotkin can contain himself no more, he takes the floor.

"Mr. Jefferson," he says, "cast your eyes into the future and imagine a city that serves as the capital of several united free states . . ." Point by point, he lays out the familiar scenario--no vote in Congress, taxation without representation. Jefferson peers over his glasses at Plotkin. He then repeats the gentleman's question to the outlying crowd in perfect 18th-century grammar. He thinks. And then he answers this way:

"To cite, surely, that Williamsburg is the capital of Virginia, and that a representative from Williamsburg is most certainly seated in the House of Burgesses to represent the happiness and interests of the citizens of Williamsburg, it would surely follow by common sense that such a city as the gentleman describes--a federal capital--would also be allowed full representation in the governing legislature." He pauses. "I cannot imagine any free nation to deny such a population full political participation."

Remarkably, the crowd of citizens from all over modern America loudly applauds the notion of a fully enfranchised District of Columbia.

A few minutes later, Plotkin, having shaken the Founder's hand, emerges from the crowd and heads back to his tennis date at the inn.

"Okay, now I love Williamsburg," he says. "I think Jefferson came out for statehood today."

COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG is 150 miles, and 225 years, southeast of Washington on I-64 near Norfolk. The stately Williamsburg Inn, built under the patronage of John D. Rockefeller and unquestionably the colony's finest hotel, is immediately adjacent to the historic quarter. Guest rooms start at $225. The resort features lawn bowling, golf, tennis courts, indoor and outdoor pools and full voting rights in Congress for hotel staff. There is no admission to the streets of Colonial Williamsburg, but a $30 day pass is required to enter the many museums and indoor exhibits. Info: 800-447-8679, www.history.org.