Its' Tough To Be The Hometown Team In No One's Hometown!

Remember that Washington doesn't know what it is to compete, at anything. The last time the city was really challenged was in 1814, and on that occasion the British marched in virtually unopposed and torched the Capitol and the White House. Congress was so disgusted with the whole cowardly citizenry that it threatened to move the seat of government to Philadelphia or Lancaster, Pa.; worried local bankers loaned the government $500,000 to redecorate, and this carried the day. Ever since, Washington has lived off the fat of the land, looking out for its own, finding better jobs for those the electorate has dismissed, inventing new layers of bureaucracy, dreaming up new regulations for lawyers to monkey with. You can do this when you don't have to worry about Memphis stealing your GM parts plant or Denver taking your insurance home office. When you think about it, the only thing Washington ever lost was the Senators. Twice.

Unlike teams from most cities, Washington's have never generated any out-of-town passion or antagonism. Get the Senators? Redskin-haters? Washington can get stirred up about the Cowboys, but Dallas doesn't react with unkind remarks about the Ellipse or the Lincoln Memorial. Even in Baltimore, only 40 miles distant, the citizens never get stirred up over playing Washington; they want to whip New York. New York—like Paris, London, Rome—is power with passion. Washington is only the former. It's sad, but nobody ever wrote a love song about Washington.

Occasionally, of course, the capital goes too far and gets the whole country riled at it. But this passes soon enough, as soon as we throw the rascals out and turn them back into lawyers and lobbyists. By contrast, the national antipathy for New York or Los Angeles is continuous and sustaining. A little civic abrasion helps the fans and the players get up for the game. But Washington, D.C.?

Clayton Fritchey, the respected political columnist, makes this point: "The great unchallenged myth is that the people hate Washington. It's accepted because Carter is supposed to have won by running against Washington. But Americans don't hate their capital. You can see the affection on the faces of the tourists downtown. And if Washington is in such terrible disrepute, then why don't the people overthrow Congress, which represents them in Washington? But they don't. In recent years, the smallest number of incumbents sent back to Congress was 88%. There's the proof."

Hate Washington? Hate the municipal version of the Great American Dream, where everybody is white collar, everybody secure, everybody dealing in real estate, everybody a lawyer or in love with one? And people in Washington know that. They are going to win the things that count. They always have. So what's a game to them? The ones who are prepared to compromise and get major league baseball back by sharing a team with Baltimore always say, "Why not take half a loaf now? Eventually we'll take over the franchise and have it all to ourselves." Doesn't Washington do that with everything it touches?

But if everything is guaranteed, if Washingtonians have nothing to be defensively contentious about, neither do they know what to hug to their breasts. They are all from someplace else, and few of them genuinely believe that anything in Washington belongs to Washington—including themselves. Unlike other hometowners, they can't take pride in the usual things: their powerful industry (there is none); their glorious natural setting (Washington was built on a swamp); their beloved traditions (it is a society of transients); their beautiful women (Baltimore and Richmond, on either side, are known for their belles); or their ball teams (losers; as every mother's son used to know by heart: Washington—First in War, First in Peace, Last in the American League).

Moreover, Washington is a geographical bastard. While it is hunkered down at one frazzled end of the Northeastern megalopolis, in many ways it resembles a Sun Belt boom-town, with young people pouring in all the time, charging the air, charging everything else at 12%. Sixty percent of the women in Washington work—only in Houston do as many women have jobs. Everybody in Washington apparently is 32 years old and drives a Volvo with no more than 12,000 miles on it. The joggers are everywhere downtown, whizzing past bureaucrats adorned with photo ID badges. "Nobody smokes, and everybody is running around in their underpants," a visiting Israeli said the other day.

"We've forged ahead of New York, not only in the sense of power, but in the way that the composition of Washington best reflects the spirit of the country," says Clark Clifford, the former Secretary of Defense. "New York has more of the old ethnic cast and strains, but Washington has the broader cross section of today's American society."

It can be argued that Washington outdoes the Sun Belt cities at their own game, for those subtropical Valhallas of youth and no yesterdays also attract the aged seeking warm winters, as well as a lot of riffraff, TV drifters who go with the sun, sure that they'll break their losing streak at the next step farther south or west. Washington is not burdened with these people. Everybody comes to the capital with a firm purpose—even if eventually that purpose becomes just to stay there.

Washington is strange, flawed in many ways, but it may well be the country's beau ideal. There are no tall buildings. It is said that nothing can exceed the 287'5½" height of the Capitol. (The Washington Monument is the exception.) Everything looks so glorious and solid. And everything is at your feet. People used to talk about cities lying at your feet. In Washington, if you're bold enough and fool enough, there is the sense that you still can conquer it. That must be why nobody ever goes home from Washington. It is the one place that has sort of an away-court advantage.