Constancy***

. . . Thy name is not Jane

She ran. She lost. She pledged support to the victor. No, she changed her mind. She would run again as a write-in candidate. Well, no she would not. She withdrew. She would support no one.

With that dizzying record of stop-go inconsistency, Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne made it even less likely that the citizens of Chicago will miss her erratic leadership. Defeated in the Democratic primary on Feb. 22 by Congressman Harold Washington, the only black ever to win a major party's mayoral nomination in Chicago, Byrne had offered herself as a write-in candidate in the April 12 general election, obviously hoping to attract the votes of white Democrats. Astonishingly, she apparently did not see that her candidacy was likely to draw white votes away from Republican Candidate Bernard Epton and ensure the election of Washington. Last week, with key campaign aides quitting and former Supporter Ted Kennedy stumping for Washington, Byrne, belatedly realizing she could not win, abruptly withdrew from the race. Her spoilsport campaign had gone nowhere.

Still clearly behind in a city in which voters are overwhelmingly Democratic and 41% are black, Epton, a millionaire lawyer, nevertheless now has a fighting, if slim, chance. Running on the slogan, EPTON FOR MAYOR--BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, he assailed Washington's conviction in 1972 for income tax evasion and added: "If it were my minority group, I'd be ashamed of this candidate." Said Washington: "If they [blacks] get the feeling that this is going to turn into a race war, then it might turn bitter, evil and angry." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.