Victory For the Middle

A move to the center in off-year elections

Psephologists will be sorting out the particulars for months to come, but one trend was clear in last week's off-year election returns: a solid vote for sanity. The people shunned way-out ideas and candidates, preferred plainspokenness to blarney, supported caution over experiment, and trusted what they could see for themselves, instead of what traditional politics and machine politicians told them. The many referendums on the ballots reflected a growing public demand for more efficient and less meddlesome government. The political center not only held; it grew all the more crowded.

The major parties had little to crow about, but not much to complain about either. They split the two gubernatorial races. New Jersey's Democratic Governor Brendan Byrne, whose self-effacing campaign style consists of a strained smile and straight-arm salute, came from way behind to swamp Republican State Senator Ray Bateman, who tripped up in trying to propose an alternative to the unpopular state income tax. Virginia's Republican Lieutenant Governor John Dalton easily moved up in rank by beating Democrat "Howlin' " Henry Howell, a big-business-baiting populist who can make the Lord's Prayer sound like Lenin's urging an assault on the Winter Palace.

As expected, Democrats kept most of the mayors' jobs in big cities, but in many cases party dissidents or independents bucked the regular organization and won. In Pittsburgh, Interim Mayor Richard Caliguiri, a Democrat who ran as an independent with support from the ethnic wards, beat Democratic candidate Thomas Foerster, a more conventional liberal. It was the third successive mayoralty defeat for the once mighty Pittsburgh machine. In Cleveland, scrappy Dennis Kucinich, 31, a former three-term city councilman, edged out Edward Feighan, 30, the candidate of the regular Democratic organization, and promised a thorough housecleaning at city hall. In Buffalo, State Senator James Griffin, who had lost the Democratic primary for mayor, bolted the party and joined the Conservatives. He won the election with 42% of the vote in a six-man race.

Generally, election winners were an eclectic group for whom age, sex or race seemed to be no barrier. Denying that she was a "little old lady in tennis shoes," retired Librarian Isabelle Cannon, 73, proved to be fast on her feet as she upset Jyles Coggins, 56, mayor of Raleigh, N.C. "How can you debate with someone who is old enough to be your mother?" complained Coggins. Said Cannon, who was backed by groups in favor of controlled growth for the city: "Raleigh is ready for a fresh new face."

In heavily Hispanic Miami, Incumbent Maurice Ferre, 42, a Puerto Rico-born millionaire, easily turned back a challenge from E.L. Marina, a Cuban exile who runs a private school. In Houston, former District Attorney Frank Briscoe, a cousin of Governor Dolph Briscoe, led a field of twelve candidates in a muted, gloves-on primary. The gloves are expected to come off when Briscoe faces former City Councilman Jim McConn, a Houston developer, in a runoff next week. In Washington State, two former newsmen are about to take some of their own medicine. TV Analyst Charles Royer was elected mayor of Seattle, and TV Anchorman Ron Blair became mayor of Spokane.

IN THE CITIES

New York: Ed Koch, 52, seemed destined to represent his relatively affluent Manhattan congressional district for the remainder of his political career. What, after all, could a balding, puckish Greenwich Village bachelor with a near-perfect A.D.A. record have to say to the rest of the hardbitten, crime-ridden, near-bankrupt city? Quite a bit, as it turned out.

Speaking in the subdued language favored by the voters of 1977, Koch promised little more than a New York version of blood, sweat and tears. Koch emphasized the need for further budget cutting and restraint on the once insatiable municipal unions. He reminded voters that even in bygone days when it was less fashionable, he had favored capital punishment for certain heinous crimes. To offset his loner image, he was usually accompanied during the campaign by Bess Myerson, 53, a former Miss America (1945) and a New York City commissioner of consumer affairs (1969-74).

Gradually Koch won the support of much of the business community and the endorsement of two of the city's three major dailies. He defeated New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo, running as the Liberal Party candidate, 50% to 42% (the Republican candidate got only 4%). Another big New York winner was Carol Bellamy, 35, an obscure but personable and articulate state senator who received 82% of the vote for city council president; she is an attractive political comer.

Koch is not going to enjoy much of a honeymoon period. New York's budget problems continue to grow, and last week underwriters turned down the city's long-anticipated sale of short-term notes after the offering had been given the lowest possible rating by Moody's Investors Service. Koch also faces negotiations with the ornery Transport Workers Union, his first encounter with city unions that have warned their wage demands can no longer be deferred.

Cleveland: Dennis Kucinich smiles like an altar boy and snarls like a truck driver--a potent combination in a city of energetic ethnics. Part Irish, part Croatian, standing 5 ft. 6 in. and looking even younger than he is, Democrat Kucinich is accused of going for the jugular even when he does not have to. He accused Republican Mayor Ralph Perk in the primary of selling out to business interests and neglecting the neighborhoods. Perk finished a poor third behind Kucinich and State Representative Feighan.

Then the two survivors turned on each other. Feighan had the backing of the Democratic organization, but Kucinich won with just over 50% of the vote, thus becoming the youngest mayor of a major city. He promises to increase city services to the neighborhoods, reduce tax abatements for businesses and fire unproductive political appointees. "Some people have said I'm going to take a broom and sweep out city hall," Kucinich said in his victory speech. "That's not true. I'm going to use a vacuum cleaner."

Detroit: Coleman A. Young, 59, is equally at home wolfing down hot dogs on a ghetto street or dining on filet de boeuf Richelieu with Henry Ford II. An early supporter of Jimmy Carter, Young was rewarded when the President paid him a visit during the campaign. HUD Secretary Patricia Harris and Muhammad Ali also came into the state. Henry Ford II lent his assistance. Young's main opposition was concentrated in the largely white police force, where there is particular resentment against his policy of favoring blacks for city jobs and promotions.

Young easily defeated his more conservative opponent, City Councilman Ernest Browne, a black who likes to quote the Bible and emphasizes racial amity. While Browne got almost 90% of the white vote, Young picked up the same percentage of the black vote; in Detroit blacks make up about 55% of the population. In his victory speech to a mostly black audience, Young pledged to be the mayor of "all the people." By way of conciliating skeptical whites, he added: "The campaign brought the races a little closer. Our job is now to reduce that polarization even more."

Minneapolis: Albert Hofstede, 37, of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and Charles Stenvig, 49, an independent conservative, are playing a game of musical mayors. Hofstede defeated Stenvig in 1973, then Stenvig ousted Hofstede in 1975, and now Hofstede has won again. A liberal who managed Hubert Humphrey's last Senate bid, he outcampaigned Stenvig--and outspent him 5 to 1. Stenvig's parting shot in a game that may not have ended: "I have only one last word of advice to the taxpayers of Minneapolis: Watch your wallets."

TWO GOVERNORS

If Jimmy Carter had bet on his choices in the gubernatorial elections, it would have been, in Las Vegas parlance, a push. In Virginia, Carter was counting on Henry Howell to take a state that Carter himself could not win last year. Howell, who often invoked his friendship with the President, failed too. In New Jersey, where Jimmy and Rosalynn spoke up for Governor Brendan Byrne's reelection, their efforts were rewarded. But both elections, as expected, were decided mostly by the candidates' personalities and local issues.

In the Old Dominion, John Dalton, 46, easily made Howell, who had run in 1969 and 1973, a three-time loser, picking up 56% of the 1.2 million votes cast. Dalton, a moderate conservative, overcame the 2-to-l Democratic bulge in the Virginia electorate by attracting twice as many independent voters as Howell. Only the election of middle-of-the-road Democrat Charles S. (Chuck) Robb as Lieut. Governor gave the Democrats any joy. Lawyer Robb, 38, Lyndon Johnson's son-in-law, is already being touted as a possible gubernatorial candidate in 1981.

After the results were in, Howell continued the caustic nature of the campaign by not congratulating Dalton. He blamed his defeat on Dalton's direct-mail campaign, which painted Howell as a wild-eyed radical, and Dalton's $1.8 million campaign fund, practically double his own. But it was Howell's maverick image and his intemperate attacks on Dalton and the Virginia business establishments, particularly the powerful utilities, that most damaged his chances.

As Howell was his own worst enemy in Virginia, Republican Ray Bateman precipitated the re-election of Governor Byrne in New Jersey. Byrne had become a most unpopular figure (last April, according to a Rutgers University poll, only 17% of New Jerseyans thought he was doing a good job), and his lifeless image led many Democrats to dub him "one-term Byrne." But in order to win the Republican nomination, Bateman had to carry the conservative vote, which he did by strongly opposing the state income tax, and that position gave Byrne a chance to go on the offensive. The Governor vehemently attacked Bateman's plan to replace the income tax with a selective job freeze, a tightening of welfare payments and possibly a small increase in the state sales tax. In a poll released two days before the election, 65% of the registered voters agreed that the state could not be run without the income tax. Byrne won with 57% of the vote. Summed up the Governor, aptly, at his victory party: The vote "speaks not to Brendan Byrne, but to the maturity of the people of the state."

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