Cool Man for a Hot Seat

Introducing Ed Koch, almost certainly New York's next mayor

The polls had been closed just ten minutes and 25 seconds when WCBS-XV called him the winner. Sheer primordial joy suffused the face of Edward Irving Koch, who normally has the contemplative features of a Talmudic scholar. The moment passed quickly. Feigning loud dismay, Koch cried: "I want it to be longer! I want to enjoy it more! It's too early! I refuse to accept victory!"

But victory it was. Koch's lead grew to ten points last week over the other Democrat who made it into the primary runoff, New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo. That surprisingly large plurality--78,000 out of 786,000 votes cast--made Koch New York's unofficial mayor-elect, though he must still get through a four-way general election. TIME Bureau Chief Laurence I. Barrett covered Koch's journey from obscurity to fame--and to the precipice of New York's intimidating problems. Barrett's report:

When Koch decided last November to make a serious run for the mayoralty, he had a longer string of negatives than an expansion baseball team in its first season: no public recognition except in his Manhattan congressional district, no money, no powerful political patrons, no neighborhood organization, no personal pizazz. He did have a small cadre of zealous supporters, the most prominent of whom was Bess Myerson, Miss America of 1945, the city's former consumer affairs commissioner and now a savvy political woman about town. In addition, Koch had a strategy. A self-proclaimed "liberal with sanity," he would adjust to the harsh new realities of life in the city by emphasizing management reform and by taking a tough line on fighting crime--including advocating capital punishment. He also became incumbent Mayor Abe Beame's sternest critic.

This approach attracted enough campaign revenue for Koch to hire Political Consultant David Garth, the artful image maker who had helped a flock of long shots win office. In Garth's TV commercials, which became increasingly important as time went on, Koch came on as Mr. Competence. Still, Koch remained back in the pack of seven. Mario Cuomo's belated entry, with strong backing from Governor Hugh Carey, attracted the support and campaign contributions of many mayor makers searching for a new-look liberal.

In the initial free-for-all primary on Sept. 8, Koch startled the experts by finishing ahead of Cuomo, taking 20% of the vote to his opponent's 19%. As the two surviving rivals started their sprint to the runoff, debating 14 times in eleven days, Koch maintained his poise while Cuomo--normally a stylish and thoughtful politician--began to turn testy before the voters. Cuomo also had trouble, as he later frankly admitted, setting forth his own clear-cut positions that differed from Koch's.

In winning the nomination, Koch carried four of the city's five boroughs, including Cuomo's home county of Queens. Among ethnic blocs, only white Catholics voted heavily for Cuomo, an Italian American. Jews went overwhelmingly for Koch, who also won a majority of the black and Hispanic districts. Cuomo vowed to fight on as the Liberal Party nominee, but supporters, including Carey, began to defect, taking campaign dollars with them. The G.O.P. candidate, State Senator Roy Goodman, has only a small base of support in a city where Democrats outnumber the Republicans 4 to 1.

Even when his chances seemed nil as he pursued the nomination, Koch displayed a remarkably cool self-assurance. "It has always been that way," says his older brother Harold. "Ed always had a very firm sense of who he was and what he could do."

At 52, Koch is typical of many New Yorkers reared in the urban equivalent of the log cabin. His parents were Polish Jewish immigrants who lived in The Bronx when the two boys and their kid sister Pat were small. After the father's modest fur business failed during the Depression, the family operated a cloakroom concession in a Newark catering hall.

Young Eddie climbed the familiar asimilation ladder to professional status: City College, time out for World War II military service as an infantry sergeant in Europe, New York University Law School, a moderately successful private practice. He first got into politics during the 1952 Stevenson campaign. Koch served as a street speaker then, and again four years later, developing a style that is more haimish--homey--than sophisticated or rousing. A Yiddish lilt flavors his speech, and a phrasemaker he isn't.

During the late '50s Koch joined the anti-Tammany reform movement in his new neighborhood, Greenwich Village. After two years on the city council, Koch was elected to Congress in 1968. In the House, Representative Koch has been a down-the-line liberal and--despite his pugnacious stance in the mayoral campaign--an excellent conciliator. Indeed, Koch was elected secretary of New York's 39-member House congressional delegation, consisting of several factions in both parties. Says a colleague: "He doesn't let ideology interfere with getting things done. He adjusts for windage."

One thing that blows Koch's cool is the charge by former supporters that he has deserted liberalism on law-and-order questions. "The illiberal liberals want to chop your head off if you support capital punishment," Koch declares. "It's immoral, they say. Why is it immoral? It's part of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. I resent those liberals who let conservatives preempt issues which are of concern to the people, like crime."

Koch reacts with relative serenity to ugly personal attacks. A bachelor and a defender of civil rights for homosexuals, he has frequently been the target of rumormongers. This summer anonymous stickers showed up on subway cars bearing the punchline: IS NEW YORK READY FOR A GAY MAYOR? Says Koch: "They've been doing that for 14 years. I'm inured to it by now." He is only slightly more irritated by the whispered canard that he is really an Episcopalian. "What a low blow," he chuckles. "But I don't mind so much because it's so ridiculous."

Intentionally or not, Koch counters both insinuations by frequent appearances in the company of "a very special friend," Bess Myerson. She kisses him in camera range. He holds her hand while entering the synagogue. When asked about possible wedding plans, Koch parries the question.

Myerson is the most glamorous element in Koch's otherwise low-key social life. He lives in a one-bedroom Greenwich Village apartment, where he occasionally cooks steaks for friends and serves low-priced French table wine from a living-room rack. In the kitchen he stocks old-fashioned seltzer siphons. He now rarely has time to listen to the Baez, Denver and Garfunkel tapes stacked by the stereo. He no longer owns an auto and frequently uses the subway. (Koch withdrew from law practice when he entered Congress, and lives on his salary of $57,500. His net worth is $90,000.)

If Koch can convert his private frugality into public policy, as he promises to do, the city will be well served. The next mayor's biggest challenge will be to revive the city's sick economy in order to reduce unemployment and strengthen the tax base. Despite a reduction in personnel by 65,000 over 33 months, and some administrative reforms, the city's $14 billion budget is still in the red--with the prospect of worse to come next year, when the debt might amount to between $300 million and $500 million. Moreover, New York must lower taxes on industry that now discourage private investment--a phased program just getting under way. That effort should eventually pay dividends, but in the short run it cuts revenues. Although there is still fat in such areas as health care, the city cannot afford to reduce any further services like fire and police protection; to do so would encourage more middle-class citizens to leave and discourage the desired influx of private capital. To add to Koch's troubles, this spring the city must also begin renegotiating the federal revolving loan program that has kept the city afloat for two years.

Koch has already begun to construct his "shadow government" for the transition, and is likely to attract top talent.

Koch will need all the help he can get. Nearly all of the municipal union leaders vehemently opposed Koch because of his determination to reduce the work force further and his intention to pare fringe benefits. Contracts covering most of the employees expire between March 30 and June 30, and the pugnacious transit workers are first in line. Yet last week, even before the vote tally was in, local Teamster Chief Barry Feinstein was at Koch's private headquarters to pay his respects. "I anticipate a very tough year," said the man whose followers snarled the city in 1971 by locking drawbridges in open positions. "But I'm a pragmatic trade unionist and I will bargain." Another caller come to toast the victor was Albert Shanker, head of the muscular teachers' union and a man who had opposed Koch during the election. The powerbrokers were already getting their lines out to the mayor-to-be.

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