Charlie Chong: He calls it the way he sees it
But here he is, 74 years young, heart patched by surgery, cancer cells slowly building in his body, tilting against near-impossible odds to be Seattle's next mayor.
The question goes begging: Why?
Why has Chong delayed treatment for recently diagnosed prostate cancer to go through the candidate forums, the fund raising and glad-handing, especially after losing two previous citywide elections, including a mayoral race four year ago?
To hear Chong tell it, the answer is simple: He is uniquely qualified to lead Seattle. His experience as a federal poverty official in rural Arkansas in the late 1960s gives him insights into race relations. He knows something about small business, having run a Minnesota cannery company. He has quick answers to the city's thorny transportation problems.
Most important, Chong says, he speaks for the common man, who is just as upset at City Hall today as he was five years ago, when Chong won a seat on the City Council by beating a candidate endorsed by most of Seattle's political establishment.
Chong is a timeless leader, he reasons, because there will always be people unhappy with government, and those people will always look to him.
"That's why I don't see this as a big comeback," he says. "The people who support me tell me they like me because I'm honest."
Out and about... not
It is a strange campaign.
Chong takes the bus to campaign appearances when his wife needs their only car — a 1976 Dodge Dart. He doesn't plan on printing yard signs, and he's not seeking endorsements. He is his own campaign manager.
He doesn't seem to care too much about getting out to voters. A few weeks ago, his schedule presented this conflict: go to a candidate forum in Chinatown or listen to transportation officials talk about the Alaskan Way Viaduct in his West Seattle neighborhood. Chong opted to stay in the neighborhood.
So far, he has raised about $12,000, a small fraction of the contributions to Mayor Paul Schell, Metropolitan King County Councilman Greg Nickels and City Attorney Mark Sidran, top fund-raisers in the 12-man race.
"He doesn't have much of a chance, but as long as he's a candidate he gets my money," said John Beeson, a West Seattle insurance broker who donated the maximum $600 to the Chong campaign. "He just likes to help people. That's why I'm supporting him — put somebody in there who is looking out for the little guy."
Chong launched his political career in 1996 running for the Seattle City Council as a neighborhood activist riding a wave of resentment over neglected potholes, glittering downtown projects and perceptions that City Hall wasn't listening to everyday people. As a councilman, he was the outsider who disdained process, politics and politeness.
He is probably best known for trying to secure used snowplows after a blizzard paralyzed Seattle. The bureaucracy didn't move fast enough, and the city of Bellevue bought the plows, giving Chong plenty of ammunition to criticize the go-slow structure of City Hall.
John Fox of the Seattle Displacement Coalition, an affordable-housing advocacy group, said Chong listened to him and other advocates who had a hard time lobbying the council successfully.
"He saw himself as a vehicle to groups who were left out," said Fox. "It's a populist, libertarian sentiment. He really offered a vision of neighborhoods making decisions themselves."
Left few footprints
If he had stayed on the council, Chong might have left a mark on the city. But he gave up his seat to run for mayor a year later and lost to Schell. At the time, he told reporters that he was running because "we're riding an upswelling of resentment that might not be here two years from now."
He was right. In 1999, he ran for City Council again and lost to newcomer Heidi Wills, four decades his junior. Wills was one of several successful council candidates that year who distanced themselves from the downtown-neighborhood fault line, claiming it simply divided the city.
Chong concedes that the issues aren't the same this time around. City funds have flooded into the neighborhoods in the past four years. The potholes are being fixed. Even Admiral Way, just a few blocks from his West Seattle home, sports a new coat of asphalt.
At a mayoral forum last week Chong gave a virtual endorsement to Schell, saying a second Schell term might be "bumpy," but the city would be better off for it.
"The resentment is certainly not the same," says Chong, "and I give credit to Paul Schell. He has done a lot of work in the neighborhoods.
"What we're riding now is not as much a wave but a depth — a depth of discontent that is probably more dangerous than it was four years ago."
There is unhappiness about traffic congestion and race relations. People don't treat each other with respect, says Chong.
The trouble for his campaign is that most people don't look to Chong for those kind of answers, said former council aide Jay Sauceda.
"Charlie was really a product of that time," he said. "The issues have changed, and he needs to change with them. Whether he can do that is open to debate."
A parable's the answer
Chong was the sixth of 13 children raised on a plantation on the island of Maui. He joined the Army, earned a degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and served in the Air Force.
From 1958 to 1963, Chong was executive vice president of a canning company in Minnesota. From 1964 to his retirement in 1983, he worked for a federal anti-poverty program.
Ask Chong a question and he answers in a parable.
He tells this story about race relations: Assigned to eastern Arkansas as a troubleshooter for the federal Community Action Program in 1967, he asked black residents what they wanted most. They answered, "Respect."
So Chong trained a staff that went out and asked merchants to use the word "Negro" instead of the other N-word. He helped residents in one town lobby officials to close a garbage dump next to a black neighborhood. In another town, blacks won a commitment from civic leaders to build a basketball court.
They were small things, he says, that empowered African Americans and gave them a stake in their communities.
"I don't think the other three guys have a clue as to how we can restore respect to our communities," says Chong. "I'm the only one who has a career dedicated to anti-poverty programs."
Some of his ideas might seem a little too raw for Seattle.
In observations on the Mardi Gras melee, Chong wonders why so many young white people allowed themselves to be beaten up by largely black assailants. His thoughts segue into another story about rural Arkansas: Blacks in one town said white teenagers would get drunk and race through their neighborhoods firing guns. They asked Chong what they should do. His answer: "Shoot back."
"The real question about Mardi Gras is how come 4,000 white guys allowed this to happen," he says. "It would have been bloody (if whites had fought back), but my point was they had to do something themselves and not just be victims."
Chong prides himself on his practical-minded approach, which is reminiscent of the governing philosophy espoused by former presidential candidate Ross Perot, known for his mantra, "It's that simple."
At a recent candidates forum at the Communication Workers of America union hall, someone asked what Chong would do about the lack of parking in Belltown, caused in part by all the new apartments.
Chong answered in five words: "No parking, no building permit."
Practical marriage
The straight talk extends to Chong's personal life.
He married longtime partner Mary Pearson two years ago, just before he was headed into heart surgery. The decision to finally tie the knot wasn't exactly romantic.
"I realized if something happened, she wouldn't have any legal standing to pull the plug," says Chong. "It was practical."
Chong would be a pragmatic mayor. Why tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct when it can be repaired, he asks.
Sound Transit should be scrapped entirely, he says, and the city should use the money instead to build a monorail and make sure it extends across Lake Washington.
To raise test scores of minority students, Chong would look up a University of Washington professor he heard speak 20 years ago about the different ways white and black children learn, and ask him to lecture Seattle public-school teachers.
In his own political analysis, Chong will advance past the Sept. 18 primary if Schell defectors vote for him instead of Nickels. Sidran, Chong believes, drains Chong's support from Republicans and independents.
It's a long shot, and Chong knows he likely won't make it past the primary. But he insists he's a serious candidate.
"Is it difficult?" he asks. "Yes. I know it's an outside chance. But you don't ask your friends for financial support if you don't think you can win."
Still, the money hasn't exactly been rolling in, and some of his most ardent supporters are privately cringing at the possibility Chong will lose credibility in this race.
Matthew Fox led Chong's 1996 campaign and later became a council aide along with Sauceda.
When Fox told reporters months ago he believed Chong would have a hard time running for mayor, Chong no longer solicited his opinion about politics.
"If he runs and loses again," Fox said, "it will diminish some of the power of what he accomplished. I would rather see him as an elder statesman, where people kiss his ring. I think he is putting himself out there and he will get a lot of abuse. Charlie has paid his dues."
Alex Fryer can be reached at 206-464-8124 or at afryer@seattletimes.com.