Anthony Williams isn’t running for soul brother of D.C.

The winner of the Democratic nomination for mayor must reach out to voters east of the Anacostia River who voted for Kevin Chavous or stayed away from the polls altogether, his campaign workers say, but he won’t try to win them over with slick style.

While Chavous’ Marion Barry-style charisma campaign may have helped him carry Wards 7 and 8, don’t expect to see Williams blaring Motown hits from a flatbed truck, said Ward 7 campaign coordinator Paul Savage.

"This is not about dancing to James Brown and being soul brother No. 1," Savage said. "This is about saving people and neighborhoods from dying."

Williams’ Democratic primary victory Sept. 15 over Ward 7’s personable councilman and five other challengers signals a change of mind sweeping black neighborhoods across the nation, Savage said.

"There has been a maturation process in the District of Columbia. We are at a point where we don’t want ‘show and tell,’ we want results. Last I heard, James Brown wasn’t bringing in supermarkets or improving our children’s education," Savage said.

"We have moved to another level of leadership, another generation that did not march in the civil rights movement."

While Williams beat Chavous by a 10-to1 margin in Ward 3, Williams couldn’t trump Chavous on his home turf east of the river. Last week, while Williams and his wife took a week’s vacation in Nantucket, Savage and other supporters set to work figuring out how to help the Harvard and Yale-educated technocrat connect with voters in the city’s poorer neighborhoods.

"We are going to spend a lot of time in the African-American community where he is not as well accepted," said Savage, a leader in the Hillcrest area, an upper middle-class pocket in Ward 7, where the "Draft Anthony Williams" movement was born. "We ought to go and sit down and talk to the folk ourselves. They are our neighbors."

Savage said small group discussions in churches and public housing complexes will be far more effective than the exhausting round of candidate forums that dominated the primary campaign. Williams supporters east of the river will have to overcome class and income barriers that separate them from their neighbors, Savage said, and help dispel the perception that Williams is "a white person’s candidate."

The Williams campaign will be even more hard-pressed in Ward 8, which had the lowest voter turnout in the city in the Sept. 15 primary.

"So many folks here are not motivated to vote," said Phil Pannell, Ward 8 coordinator for the Williams campaign. "They’ve heard so many broken promises, it’s hard to get people to believe that voting will improve their lives.

"Marion Barry appealed to a number of people symbolically, people who vicariously live through people in the limelight," Pannell said. "They don’t have that connection with Anthony Williams."

Chavous has not pledged to support Williams but plans to meet with him this week to discuss issues. Meanwhile the Williams campaign is relying on a message of party unity, with endorsements from Barry and a show of strength at a press conference with the Democratic slate at the Democratic National Committee headquarters shortly after the primary. A "unity breakfast" featuring all members of the D.C. Democratic Party slate is scheduled for Sept. 29 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

Ward 8 voters who come to the polls Nov. 3 will stick with their party, predicted Ward 8 ANC commissioner William Lockridge, but there doesn’t seem to be much excitement in the neighborhood about the election.

"It’s kind of over," Lockridge said. "Many people will just stay home."

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator