The Politics of Disgust

By Janice C. Simpson/New York

When New York City voters go to the polls next week, they will consider the same two major candidates they did four years ago: David Dinkins and Rudolph Giuliani. But this time the slate seems so disappointing to many New Yorkers that they would probably prefer to choose "none of the above." The reason: like the rest of urban America, the city has changed.

In New York's last election, the main issue was the racial strife that threatened to tear the city apart. Dinkins, a black liberal Democrat who promoted himself as the right man to soothe those tensions, eked out a victory over his white Republican rival to become the city's first African American chief executive. Race relations in the Big Apple haven't improved much since then. But New Yorkers now express more concern about crime, jobs, affordable housing and effective schools.

Both candidates pay lip service to this new agenda. Giuliani, who made his reputation as a gang-busting U.S. Attorney during the Reagan Administration, talks up his plans to crack down on crooks, privatize government services and lower taxes. Such proposals, however, aren't markedly different from those offered by Dinkins, who trumpets a two-year decline in the city's crime rate, an improvement in some city services like the extension of library hours, and his record of balancing the budget every year since taking office.

Rather than give more details about future plans, however, the candidates have descended into potshots. One of Giuliani's ads seeks to portray the mayor as weak and ineffectual by reciting a list of civic disturbances during Dinkins' term, including a 1991 melee between blacks and Jews. Meanwhile, the Dinkins campaign has ridiculed the Republican challenger's proposal to set a 90-day limit on stays in homeless shelters, calling it an example of Giuliani's coldness and lack of compassion. At least three scheduled debates have been canceled because the candidates couldn't agree on the rules. The attacks prompted New York Newsday last week to portray the two candidates in swaddling clothes under the Page One headline two big babies.

Voters are disgusted. Polls show Dinkins and Giuliani locked in a statistical dead heat; the only movement is the rising disapproval ratings for both of them. Neither candidate is getting across a message that he can be an urban Mr. Fixit. Dinkins comes off as a courtly but unimaginative bureaucrat with a taste for fussy clothes and fancy ceremonies. Giuliani has a reputation as a humorless autocrat with an abrasive management style that involves shooting first and asking questions later.

< With no candidate who stands out as a clear vote for competence, voter support is breaking down much as it did last time around: along racial lines, almost by default, with blacks and liberal whites lining up for Dinkins and white ethnics backing Giuliani. The swing factor is the city's growing Hispanic electorate, which gave Dinkins 64% of its vote in 1989 but may deliver less for him this time around. Whichever candidate they elect, New Yorkers can only hope that their new chief executive will be modest enough to borrow a page or two from the new breed of mayors in America's smaller cities.