While few council members have such dedicated fans, or receive as many public hugs, her recent decision to seek a sixth term was met with surprise and skepticism in some quarters. The anti-incumbent mood revealed by the Sept. 15 primary defeat of longtime Democratic councilmen Frank Smith and Harry Thomas, combined with a mild heart attack Mason suffered the same day, don’t seem to bode well. But Mason’s age and health may not be her biggest problem. The party’s defining issue may be eclipsed by other concerns.

"Fewer and fewer of the people who vote see statehood as a burning issue," said Howard Croft, a political science professor a the University of the District of Columbia and a specialist in local history. "Sixty percent of the residents have only lived here five years. They have no memory of the struggle for home rule or the struggle for statehood."

Party chairman John Gloster points to Statehood’s full slate on the Nov. 3 ballot as a sign of the party’s health. The Statehood Party has put up Gloster as its mayoral candidate, Mason in the at-large council race, newcomer Joe Romanow for council chairman, Pat Kidd for House of Representatives delegate and David Van Williams for the unpaid "shadow" U.S. representative position.

"There was a long dry spell where we were only running candidates for one or two positions," Gloster said. "We haven’t run a mayoral candidate for over a decade."

The 4,013 registered Statehood Party members comprise 1.2 percent of the District’s registered voters, according to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics.

Mason, a grande dame of the home rule movement, helped found the Statehood Party in 1971, three years before Congress granted the city limited home rule. After working in the public schools, she served on the D.C. school board from 1972-77. She was appointed to city council in 1977 to fill the vacancy left by the death of Julius Hobson, also a founder of the State-hood Party. Mason won a special election later that year and was re-elected in 1978, ’82, ’86, ‘90 and ‘94. All the while, she kept up her fight to make the District of Columbia a state in its own right and earned a personal reputation as someone who stood up for people on the bottom of the economic ladder.

"Hilda is one of the last politicians in the city who can still command some moral authority," Croft said.

"When it came down to poor people and working people needing an ally, Hilda was usually there. That’s more than you can say for most of the current members of the council.

"The people who remember the progressive role Hilda Mason played in D.C. politics will probably vote for her out of sentiment."

But to younger and more transient residents, who often turn out to vote in greater numbers than some longtime D.C. residents, Croft said Mason seems little more than a nice grandma who doesn’t know it’s time to retire.

"She has found it hard to exit," he said.

Croft predicts Mason will do well Nov. 3 in her home ward, 4, and in Wards 5, 7, 8 and parts of 6, although probably not well enough to beat Republican David Catania. Catania likely will get votes from independents, Republicans, "good government" Democrats and "the new, more affluent Washington," Croft said.

At his weekly press conference Oct. 7, Mayor Marion Barry Jr. announced he would cast his second vote for Mason but retracted his statement moments later. After none of the assembled members of the D.C. Democratic slate would declare their intention to vote for Mason, Barry said, "I jumped too fast in saying whom I second vote. I should just have said I like Hilda Mason."

Mason won her current seat by coming in a distant second to Linda Cropp, who won 46 percent of the vote in 1994. Mason captured 15 percent of the vote, edging out Republican David Hall by just two percentage points.

"Certain groups have been concerned about Hilda Mason’s votes," Croft said. "The environmentalists, organized labor, neighborhood preservation types. She has alienated groups that have been with her in the past."

But Mason’s campaign manager, Doug Hartnett, said the campaign expects widespread support across the city.

"Everyone knows her and pretty much everyone loves her," Hartnett said. "People know her — she always shows up."

Some activists speculate privately that Mason would have done more for her party by bowing out and passing her mantle to Gloster, who could mount a realistic campaign as a legitimate successor to her council seat, instead of making a nearly impossible bid for mayor.

"Although I love Hilda, people are looking for new faces, new blood," said Paula Nickens, chairman of the D.C. State Democratic Party. "The Statehood Party has a responsibility to groom someone else."

Some say the campaign may undermine her support.

"I don’t want to see her defeated, I want to throw her a parade," said John Capozzi, a member of the D.C. Democratic State Committee and former U.S. "shadow" representative for the District. "But people are aware she is trying again and I think that is generating opposition. Look at what happened to Harry Thomas and Frank Smith. I think the (Statehood) Party really miscalculated."

Although Gloster has mounted an active campaign and gained recognition as a leader among the next generation of Statehood activists, the party may still suffer if it loses its only representative on city council, Croft said.

"I don’t know if they (Statehood members) have enough momentum to keep alive and keep active," said the Democrat’s Nickens. "Democrats have put Hilda Mason in office over the years anyhow."

But Gloster said the Statehood Party has beaten the Democrats at their own game.

"With the near monopoly the Democratic Party has (in the District), it benefits from the monied interests that would have (otherwise) gone to the Republicans," he said.

"We are what the Democrats promised to be — truly a progressive party. We fulfill the needs of the common people of the District."

Formerly a Democrat, Gloster joined the Statehood Party when he moved into the District five years ago. Among the party’s priorities is increasing spending on drug treatment, mental health services, welfare-to-work initiatives and other social services. Gloster and Romanow most recently put forward a proposal to create cooperative, locally owned grocery stores to take over two sites recently closed by Safeway.

With Mason’s re-election prospects shaky and Gloster a long shot for mayor at best, the party must turn its attention after the election to rebuilding, Croft said.

"The Statehood Party has to resist taking extreme positions that might be ideologically satisfactory to members of the party but would marginalize the party with the voters," he said. "When left-of-center parties are defeated, there’s always a possibility that they will take super-pure positions."

But Statehood Party member Sam Smith said the party won’t give up its views just because they are "not popular."

"We’ve got to hold on to these values and pursue a steady course and trust that at some point things will start breaking our way," said Smith, editor of The Progressive Review, a populist pamphlet that comments on national affairs. "The goal is not to get a seat at the table, but to change people’s views so that they regain the sense that they have the right to be citizens."

Smith said the progressive agenda is in increasing danger as younger, more affluent residents and big business take over the city.

"Fewer and fewer people care about statehood — or about democracy, for that matter — and it’s not just local," he said. "There’s a loss of will among the people who are meant to be fighting the bad guys and an increasing number of people, especially whites, who expect to snap their fingers and be served by the city. Those of us who remember what life was like in this town when it was segregated, before home rule, we don’t take that lightly."

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator