Mayor Muriel Bowser for President

Few people watching Trump’s takeover of Washington DC understand how the city’s constitutional purgatory makes his tanks and troops so easy to deploy. Americans do not appreciate how deeply weird and undemocratic the District of Columbia is. So, considering most voters focus is difficult to win in matters of public administration, what is a compelling way to explain the District’s powerless position?

Mayor Muriel Bowser for President

While voters are mostly unaware of their own state governments, what they may know explains nothing about the District. The best way to share the city’s plight is for Mayor Muriel Bowser to run for President of the United States. How else could anyone hold public attention long enough than holding coffees in Iowa and South Carolina?

Statehood is the only way into the federal government—no state means no House members or Senators. Even as the District of Columbia was carved from Maryland and Virginia, since 1801 it has been a federal district under the Constitution, not a state. Local control varied over the centuries, but the District is ultimately governed at the whim of both Congress and the President with the funding and power they choose to provide.

Now, while important context, this structure is too far outside most voters’ experience to grasp. How can someone not live in a state or why should a city be a state? But Mayor Muriel Bowser, out on the rubber chicken and corndog circuit, can say running for President is the only federal office she can legally run for. “Why is that?” people would ask. “Well, let me tell you.” She could earn coverage in media markets across the U.S. and explain that, while everyone in the District pays taxes, fights in wars, ducks jury duty, just like they do, the District suffers under Taxation without Representation.

Unexpected attention

To protest Citizens United, I ran my company, Murray Hill Inc., for Congress—corporations were people after all. Its oddly plausible premise was ideal for media outlets to explain the ruling before actual data became public, and the campaign earned worldwide coverage. What I learned is an accessible story based on personal experience, like voting for a congressional candidate, draws people into considering larger issues.

For Murray Hill Inc., humor connected with the voters. But for Mayor Bowser and Washington DC, it is the compelling story of troops and tanks occupying city streets that will earn attention. But the usual inside-the-beltway frame for the city must be broken. The District needs an absolutely unexpected way to get voters to tilt their heads and wonder for a moment about what is really happening.

Plausibility

The mayor’s campaign will garner attention because it is plausible. Raised as a child of modest middle class means, Mayor Muriel Bowser has risen to become a successful mayor of a diverse city for over a decade. There have been gains in affordable housing and economic opportunity. Crime is at its lowest point in the past 30 years. And the city is complex, providing both state and local services to a state-scale population, being larger than Wyoming and Vermont. She also has connections to mayors across the United States through the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which provides remarkable access to local politics everywhere through fellow elected officials who would truly appreciate a chance to champion one of their own.

Then consider the wealth of political talent and economic resources within the District. How many skilled political operatives, experienced in presidential campaigns, call the city home? How much money is held by residents who truly support DC statehood? And, across political parties, how many national media-savvy residents want nothing more than to not see tanks in their neighborhood every morning?

The Democrat a District needs

So, Mayor Muriel Bowser, test the Democratic presidential primary waters. People of DC, create the “Draft Mayor Muriel for President” campaign. It is the best way to tell the story of the District of Columbia and the injustice of Trump’s military occupation. Also, hell, she might even win, and you all might become a state after all.