Join me today on a journey into the psyche of some voters in Tacoma.
I can’t say for sure whether this journey will be spirited or spiritual. It will, however, be disturbing.
It starts in the charming but noisy backroom of Commencement Bay Coffee on Jefferson Avenue. Members of the Hillside Development Council, a neighborhood group for the turf between Hilltop and Pacific Avenue, held the first forum in the campaign for mayor of Tacoma.
Several dozen men and women strained to hear Marilyn Strickland and Jim Merritt say why they want the job. The acoustics were so difficult, however, that I was willing to throw my support behind whichever candidate could talk the loudest.
At one point, Merritt described his commitment to the campaign.
“This is going to be a spiritual journey,” Merritt said.
Or maybe he said: “This is going to be a spirited journey.”
I heard one word and Ian Demsky, The News Tribune’s reporter covering the event, heard another. But it got into the paper as “spiritual,” which leads to the next step in our journey. The morning the article appeared, Merritt’s campaign manager, Ronnie Bush, received three phone calls.
One woman asked if Merritt attends Life Center, a Protestant church affiliated with the Assemblies of God. Bush said that he did.
“Oh, so that’s why he said spiritual journey,” the caller said, adding that she didn’t think religion should be brought into the campaign.
Three calls may not seem like a lot. But Bush said she knows from experience that if three go to the trouble of searching for the number and calling, a lot more are thinking the same thing.
Bush said she heard Merritt say “spirited,” not “spiritual.” She asked The News Tribune to correct the article, claiming her candidate was “misquoted to the point of changing the message of the campaign.”
When I heard about it, I thought Oh my God (no pun intended). Have we really reached the point that a candidate who may – or may not – have equated a campaign to a spiritual journey gets into trouble? The left is now as culpable as the right on religious litmus tests, parsing each statement by candidates to sleuth out closeted Christians as though they’re all politically conservative.
And what does any of this have to do with a mayor in a council-manager form of government in a medium-sized city with more problems than answers?
Bush said the quote – or misquote – plays into an ongoing whispering campaign about Merritt; that he is – brace yourself – a Republican. And since Tacoma hasn’t knowingly elected a Republican for years and since a certain segment of the electorate has concluded that all Republicans are conservative Christians, the quote about spiritual journeys confirmed their suspicions.
So now Merritt is forced to say he has supported the campaigns of many Democrats and remind voters that this is, after all, a nonpartisan office. The labeling might surprise some of the folks who have endorsed him, many of whom I recognize as being pretty liberal.
Also endorsing him is Dean Curry, the senior pastor at Life Center. But his brother David, also a minister and the executive director of the Tacoma Rescue Mission, has endorsed Strickland.
Since it has now become an issue in a campaign pretty short of them so far, I asked Strickland about her religious beliefs. She said she does not belong to a formal congregation but said she was raised in a Christian household and believes in God. She also said she respects the right of people to believe as they wish.
Which presumably includes candidates for mayor.
Either way, Merritt has removed all references to journeys – whether spiritual or spirited – from his stump speech. And I was ready to move on until I discovered something else Merritt said last week. He promised to use the “bully pulpit” to advocate for Tacoma.
Pulpit? Hmmmm, just what did he mean by that?
Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657
peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com
blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics
