Disgraced former Mayor Megan Barry announced on Wednesday that she’s running against Republican Mark Green to represent Tennessee's 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. As far as I can tell, Nashville Democrats are excited. Former Democratic Party chair Mary Mancini tweeted that she’s “thrilled.” Other people I love and respect seem to share this opinion.
Am I on drugs? Did I slip into an alternate universe? Megan Barry pleaded guilty to a felony — stealing taxpayer money. Yes, she completed the terms of her deal and the felony has been expunged. That’s great for her, but we still know it.
Megan Barry, Girl Boss, is a great unofficial slogan until you stop to think of the ways she screwed women over in order to carry on the activities that led to her stealing taxpayer money. The women on her security detail who couldn’t get overtime or the opportunity to travel with her because she was giving all that time and resources to her lover? The wife of her lover? To hell with them, I guess?
A couple of folks have asked me how I think Mark Green will respond to this. I hope for Barry's sake he just ignores her. Because if he gives an intern 20 minutes and asks them to report back on everything they find after Googling “Megan Barry gossip,” he’s going to have a treasure trove of negatives and no reason to be polite or discreet about them.Â
Megan Barry is a lovely person. I’ve met her many times and like her a great deal. She has dear, loyal friends who love her. I’ve fielded angry direct messages from her husband when I’ve written about her in the past. But they’re doing her and Democrats a disservice by not talking her out of running.
Running for U.S. Congress puts a target on a person. Every known unseemly thing is bound to be relitigated in the press. And many currently unknown unseemly things will come out. We now have the Daily Wire in town, and them having a female Democrat with a closet full of skeletons to focus on is going to be a field day of despicable misogyny and hunting down truth in any rumors they might hear. Plus, she’s running for national office. She’s tossing herself into the blender of Fox News and Newsmax and the New York tabloids, and to what end? The right is still stinging over George Santos. You think they wouldn’t love to shift attention to “But look at this Democrat who also stole and also has an unconventional sex life”?
When I think about the ferocity with which right-wing media might like to chew her up and spit her out, and when I think how utterly foreseeable that mauling is, I’m legit concerned we’re all cheering on Barry self-harming when we think she’s self-actualizing.
When I called a friend of mine to stew about how bizarre Barry’s decision to run is, he said, “But you’re still going to vote for her, of course.” And I was brought up short. Hell will freeze over before I vote for a Tennessee Republican, but all the sex-scandal stuff aside, am I going to vote for a candidate who pleaded guilty to stealing taxpayer money the last time she was in office? And it’s not like she took money out of the till to pay for groceries and then paid it back at the end of the month. She pleaded guilty to stealing money from taxpayers for weeks. Not just one worst moment but worst moments upon worst moments.Â
And frankly, no. I’m not going to vote for her if she’s the candidate. The last time she was in office she abused her power, and I have no reason to think she wouldn’t do that again.
Obviously, hypothetically, I’d rather have a Democrat in that seat than a Republican. But if Barry won, I suspect there’d be a race to see who could find the juiciest terrible thing about her in order to hold it over her head, possibly to influence her vote. And frankly, I don’t think Democrats would get to her first. So how is a Democrat who votes like they're afraid of what Republicans might reveal about them that much different than a Republican?
I’ll write in Odessa Kelly or leave it blank or something. But I can’t vote for Barry, and I am appalled that so many of you seem so eager to. Either following the law matters or it doesn’t. You can’t be outraged at the behavior of Republicans and then turn around and be all, “But overlook all those same traits in our wonderful friend, Megan Barry.” If it’s wrong, it’s wrong even when someone we like does it.
I’m confused by why Barry would willingly subject herself to the inevitable emotional torture of campaigning and possibly winning (slight as those chances might be), but that’s her business. Nashville, though? Nashville. She stole from us. And now you want to give her access to more taxpayer money and a national platform? Because why? She’s changed? Maybe she didn’t understand that what she did was wrong? Do you even hear yourself? Sure, while we’re at it, let’s do our recruitment for all our local brewery jobs at DUI court. Let’s put a dude who gambled his kids’ college money away in charge of the lottery. Let’s play in traffic. Make toast while we take a bath.
Nashville, you know who she is and what she feels OK doing with your resources. I felt bad for us having to learn a hard lesson when she was mayor, but if we vote for her again, then we haven’t learned any lessons. We’re just fools who are setting ourselves up to get fooled again.
