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INDIE POLITICS
Barb wired
BY CHRIS WRIGHT

Barbara Johnson lives in Andover, in a small house on a dark, quiet street. Still, it’s not difficult to spot Johnson’s place. It’s the one with the big red fire truck parked outside. Inside, it’s pretty easy to spot Johnson, too: she’s the one wearing the tiger-print shirt, chain smoking Mores, and denigrating Mitt Romney. "He has a bad color job; it looks like a bad toupee," she says. "I have a sister who’s a colorist. Every time I saw him, he was wearing this thick, thick orange makeup. I felt I was with a Martian. It was awful."

Mitt Romney, she adds, "has no hormones."

If Johnson’s campaign for governor has been a bit out of the ordinary, its denouement — a "bring-your-own-beer" election-night party — verges on the surreal. "Entrée vous, sil vous plait," she says in response to a doorbell, her gravelly voice sounding like a stretched-out cough. When asked if it’s okay to smoke, she wields a giant ashtray and rasps, "My God! How could you even ask such a question?" Then, from amid a bobbing constellation of red, white, and blue balloons, she settles back into her white "throne," smiles benignly into the television lights, and begins another installment of the Barbara Johnson Show.

Throughout her campaign, Johnson has made media reps weep with gratitude and joy. In a race whose two main candidates could make a log seem interesting, Johnson stood out like an elephant in a cranberry bog. She has criss-crossed the state in that truck of hers, promising to "douse the fires of corruption." She has terrorized other candidates on radio call-in shows. And she has livened up political debate with her what-will-she-say-next? rhetorical style. "The best thing I did," she recalls, "was to say, ‘I’m pissed off.’" While Johnson’s campaign did promote some serious issues — most notably father’s rights — her delivery was pure cabaret.

As bizarre and impolitic as her behavior can seem, Johnson’s no fool. When not running for governor, she works as a lawyer. "I jump up and down in court," she says. "I drive the judges wild; I have to, or they don’t pay any attention." Tonight, with the end of her campaign drawing near, she seems determined to get as much attention as she can: words like "balls" and "whores" resound. When discussing reproductive rights, Johnson remarks that, "She should have kept Pauline’s zipper closed and not encouraged him to get Peter out of his pocket." Then, in case anyone missed the comment, she repeats it. Meanwhile, her supporters (mostly wounded-looking, early-middle-aged males) look on as if Johnson were delivering the Gettysburg Address.

Johnson’s most passionate monologue of the night comes when she reveals that, at a campaign rally the previous night, she saw a fire truck with Shannon O’Brien signs on it. "Mine’s just a pumper; hers is a big one," she says, scandalized. "Talk about a copycat. I doubt she sat in it — I drove mine." Before long, though, even this controversy fails to stoke Johnson’s fires. "I’m all talked out," she says. "I have no voice left." And then, as the balloons droop and the sliced turkey starts to curl at the edges, members of the media file from the room. It’s nine o’clock. Before long, Mitt Romney will be named governor of Massachusetts. "I don’t like him," Johnson says. "I don’t trust him. He’s a white wuss. The vibes are all wrong."

Issue Date: November 7 - 14, 2002
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