Is City Council candidate Tracy Ward a breath of fresh air or a political exhibitionist?

An elf-sized, white Christmas tree stands on the pool table at the Gusto Lounge, a cozy midtown bar that celebrates a time when Americans drank Schlitz in large, unironic quantities. Pink ornaments dangle from the tree’s branches in honor of Tracy Ward, a City Council candidate whose most striking feature is the bubble-gum color of her hair.

“Every time I tried to change the color,” she says, perched on a stool in the poolroom, “everybody was like, ‘I like the pink. It’s just you.’ It was my signature thing, I guess.”

It’s a Saturday night in mid-December. Ward’s black dress stands apart from the leather-and-denim look of the 20 or so supporters here for her first fundraiser. In addition to a suggested $5 donation at the door, proceeds from a silent auction will go toward her campaign. The items for the auction include a handmade quilt, organic heirloom seeds and the selected works of Thomas Paine — all stacked under the tree, they’re a bayonet short of a survivalist’s dream Christmas.

The goodies, which were donated by supporters, provide a rough outline of Ward’s political narrative. She’s the Kansas City director of the Liberty Restoration Project, a Ron Paul-inspired group that promotes, among other things, gun rights; an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and “food sovereignty,” a movement based on the belief that corporations have too much control over our pantries.

The Liberty Restoration Project also has called for the abolition of the Federal Reserve. But voters in Kansas City shouldn’t expect Ward to promote a return to the gold standard in the weeks leading up to the February 22 primary. Ward has applied the struggle for liberty to local issues, most notably the city’s use of cameras to capture red-light infractions.

Ward believes that the Bill of Rights dies a little with every flash of a red-light camera. She has stood with other libertarians-in-leather on street corners, protesting the surveillance. But the cameras, which the City Council voted to install in 2009, remain in place, which is one of the reasons that Ward decided to run for the at-large seat in south Kansas City’s 6th District.

“Instead of getting frustrated that she’s not finding success at the city level, she’s stepping up and taking responsibility for her community,” says Catherine Bleish, a friend of Ward’s and a founder of the Liberty Restoration Project.

Ward wants to tap into the widespread (and largely correct) opinion that the city is run by people who become more disengaged with each political race they win.

“City Hall seems to be a bunch of politicos, insiders, establishment types,” she says. “We really need to start listening to the residents and doing what they ask us to do instead of what those at the top want.”

It was the city’s unresponsiveness, along with the $100 fines arriving in drivers’ mailboxes, that inspired Ward’s run for office. She says Cathy Jolly, the current 6th District at-large representative, kept canceling scheduled meetings. “Why is she scared to meet with me?” Ward asks. “I’m not a scary person. I’m actually pretty nice. I think I’m really nice.”

Jolly decided not to run for re-election. But her husband, Scott Taylor, is running for the seat, and last week he snagged the coveted endorsement of the firefighters union.

A Jolly-Ward race would have been fascinating. Each is a woman in her 30s, balancing motherhood with other responsibilities. But the similarities end there. Jolly’s husband is a lawyer. Ward’s is the drummer in a local rock band called Federation of Horsepower. An experienced politician, Jolly seems to tremble at the idea of having to come up with an original thought; even her hand gestures seem scripted. Ward wears motorcycle sunglasses and stands outside airport terminals holding signs that say, “Refuse the human microwaves!”

[page]

Ward grew up in Raytown. Her father sold cars. Her mother, who died in 2001, ran an herb store. Her parents’ experiences as small-business owners left an impression. “I was brought up on the concept of you don’t spend what you don’t have,” she says.

She lived in midtown for several years before buying a house near Bannister Mall. Her most recent occupation: bartender.

“I’ve never had a flashy job,” she says. “I’ve always liked the jobs that actually keep you on your feet and up and moving and doing stuff.”

Ward’s challenge will be convincing voters that a nonprofessional with a punk-rock hairdo and straight-rock husband can handle the budget, pension obligations, and multibillion-dollar upgrade of the city’s sewers. She’s easily dismissed by veteran campaign consultants, such as Steve Glorioso, who calls her candidacy a “flight of fancy.”

But the most provocative thing about Ward is not her hair. It’s her opposition to the earnings tax, the 1-percent income tax that Kansas City charges residents and nonresidents who work in the city. The tax comes up for a vote in April, an election forced by a statewide ballot initiative that was funded by Rex Sinquefield, the billionaire Missourian who believes in free markets with nearly religious zeal. The tax, should voters eliminate it, will fade away in 0.10-percent increments over a period of 10 years, forcing the city to replace or live without revenue that added up to $202 million this year.

Ward claims that people in her district won’t mind if the tax disappears. “They don’t want it anymore because they’re not seeing any benefits from it,” she says, glossing over the fact that the tax pays for trash removal, police patrols, and other basic functions that her district’s residents obviously use. “So why are we extracting more money from them if they’re not getting the services for it?”

What services would Ward cut from the budget if the e-tax disappeared?

“I’m not cutting any services,” she says. “I would cut spending.”

Of course, spending and services are the same thing; you can’t cut one without cutting the other. Still, Ward believes that the city could absorb the loss of the earnings tax without missing a beat. “If we have a $1.3 billion budget, and we’re worried about [cutting] $202 million over 10 years? Seems a little ridiculous to me.”

Talking about the budget, Ward’s freshness takes a turn for the naïve. While the city’s annual budget is $1.3 billion, most of that revenue is untouchable. The money that the city collects from sewer bills gets spent on sewers. Revenue from water bills gets spent on water treatment. Once these “enterprise funds” are depleted, the city’s budget looks more like $458 million.

This remaining pot of money pays for firefighters, codes inspectors, dogcatchers, Legal Aid and a bunch of other services. Ward’s neighbors may think that these services are deficient now. But if they were cut almost in half — which would happen without the e-tax or something in its place — those neighbors would really notice the difference.

Ward’s association with the Liberty Restoration Project may also pose a problem. Everyone loves liberty, especially his or her own. But Bleish, a host of Ward’s fundraiser at the Gusto, is firmly on the fringe. She’s open to the ideas that 9/11 was an inside job and that President Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fake.

[page]

These views can scare off mainstream voters. At the Gusto, the silent auction gets off to a slow start; it looks unlikely that heirloom seeds will come close to matching what Ward’s opponent will receive in one check from Taxpayers Unlimited, the firefighters’ campaign committee.

“I’m not getting tens of thousands of dollars,” Ward says, “but I’m not seeking it. I’d rather have people that actually believe in what I want to have happen, believe in the fact that I can make a difference.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but it likely won’t get her far. Then again, Sinquefield knows where to find her. He spent more than $10 million on the statewide initiative that’s forcing Kansas City and St. Louis to defend their e-taxes at the polls. Surely he can find some pocket change for the woman with pink hair who shares a few of his ideals.