Who Won What

There's a theory of American politics that's been kicking around for a long time. It says essentially that a change in American political coalitions takes place every 36 years. Most historians agree that the last major change took place in 1932, the year FDR defeated Herbert Hoover.

Thirty-six years after 1932 is 1968--the year America elected Richard Nixon. Many political observers--the most notable of whom are Nixon's political analysts--feel that this is profoundly significant. The year 1968, they say, will go down in history as the beginning of the Third Republican Era.

The off-year elections held around the country on Tuesday indicated a substantial realignment of political loyalties. The two most significant elections in this regard took place in Philadelphia and Cleveland. In the city of brotherly love, "the toughest cop in the world," as Frank Rizzo calls himself, was elected Mayor. He defeated a Republican liberal, Thatcher Longstreth, by 50,000 votes out of a total of 750,000. Rizzo's strong law-and-order appeal won him widespread support from the city's ethnic groups, most notably Italians (of which Rizzo is one), Irish, and poorer Jews. Longstreth won substantial support among more wealthy Jews, white liberals and blacks.

What is most interesting about the vote is that it marked a tremendous change in Philadelphia's traditional voting patterns. Rizzo won substantially in the traditionally Republican, Italian and Irish wards. He carried the 21st Ward on the Northeast side, for example, with about 60 per cent of the vote. Before Tuesday, Ward 21, which is mostly Italian, but includes some working class Jews, had voted for every Republican candidate for Mayor since the Civil War.

Longstreth made similar strides among black voters, who felt that Rizzo's slogan "Rizzo Means Business" meant that Rizzo would give them the business. Black wards gave Longstreth 70 per cent of their ballots, the highest Republican percentage since 1932. In Philadelphia, race clearly meant more than party.

The same was true of Cleveland, which elected its last Republican Mayor in 1941. It elected Republican city auditor Ralph Perk on Tuesday. Perk received about 44 per cent of the vote to 33 per cent for black independent Arnold Pinkney, Mayor Carl Stokes' choice. The third candidate, white liberal Democrat James Carney, took about 23 per cent.

Forty per cent of Cleveland's voters are black. Most politics-watchers had expected the two white candidates to divide the majority vote, allowing Pinkney and Stokes black machine to win. It didn't happen because Cleveland's whites, a collection of Bohemians, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Croats, Polish and Irish, united around conservative Perk. They did this despite their traditional attraction to the Democratic party. Once again, race beat party.

Add to this the fact that his opposition to bussing to achieve racial balance helped San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto pull out a victory despite an indictment against him, and one comes up with the idea that the elections of 1971 prove that Americans respond to fear and race hatred. This isn't entirely true. Kevin White's overwhelming victory over Louise Day Hicks would seem to indicate that voters do not always vote on the fear issue. It is of some significance, however, that in the campaign in which she most de-emphasized the race issue, the conservative Democratic Congresswoman made her worst showing ever.

Despite this, one can be sure that Nixon's political analysts are looking to Philadelphia and Cleveland as hopeful signs for their man in 1972. If traditional politics in the cities is being broken up by new ethnic alignments based upon law and order, then the Democrats will be in serious trouble in urban areas. Nixon may not win the cities in 1972; but these votes would seem to indicate that the cities will not give the Democrats the large margins they've traditionally needed to carry the big states.

Three other elections took place on Tuesday, however, which may indicate that something else is afoot.

In Virginia, former state Senator Henry E. Howell was elected Lt. Governor running as an independent on what the Washington Post labeled a "consumer populist" platform. He defeated an organization Democrat, and a Republican nominee hand-picked by G.O.P. Governor Linwood Holton. Howell ran for Governor two years ago and narrowly lost the Democratic nomination.

He won on Tuesday by putting together a coalition of blacks, poor whites and suburbanites around the slogan "Keep the Big Boys Honest," the same slogan he used in 1969. He based his appeal on his long time opposition to the interests of the Virginia Power Company, the banks and corrupt politicians. (One of his alternate slogans in 1969 went "Henry Howell Don't Owe Nothing to Nobody.") That this sort of consumer populism could succeed may bode very badly for conservatives. Party lines are breaking up on other issues besides race.

In a second case of anti-Big Boy politics, the voters of Florida overwhelmingly approved a new state corporate income tax proposed by Democratic Governor Reuben Askew. This came despite massive efforts made against the tax by Florida banks and corporations, including the DuPont Company. The banks went so far as to enclose a piece of anti-tax campaign literature in every bank statement mailed out in the state shortly before the election. The voters refused to respond to the pressure.

In a third case of anti-establishment rebellion, the voters of New York state defeated the Rockefeller-Lindsay Transportation Bond Issue by a half a million votes out of 3.1 million cast. The bond had the support of the entire New York establishment--mayor Lindsay, Governor Rockefeller, the Times, the Post, Senators Buckley and Javits, the Chambers of Commerce, the contractors' association, the construction unions. Both Lindsay and Rockefeller said its defeat would mean the end of the 30-cent subway fare. It lost anyway. It was defeated because upstate voters didn't want to spent more money for highways or subways, and because New York City voters didn't trust promises that about half the money would be spend on the subways. In one sense, the vote was conservative in that it was anti-spending. More importantly, however, it was a sign of general disapproval with the collection of groups and individuals who joined in support of the referendum. For all of the bond lobby, it was a vote of no-confidence.

What all this shows, I think, is that the dissatisfaction expressed through the race issue in Cleveland and Philadelphia was expressed through economic issues elsewhere. The 1968 election did mark the beginning of an era of political change. That this change will be favorable to conservatism in general or Richard Nixon in particular is very much open to question.

Several other elections took place on Tuesday which fit into more conventional political categories.

The elections in Kentucky and New Jersey were of particular interest to political observers because off-year swings to the G.O.P. in these states in 1967 foreshadowed the Nixon win in 1968.

In 1967, Kentucky elected Louis B. Nunn, its first Republican Governor in many years. Nixon carried the Bluegrass state in 1968. On Tuesday, Kentucky elected Democrat Wendell Ford who ran on a dump-Nixon platform, directing his fire especially against the President's economic programs.

The G.O.P. won overwhelming control of the New Jersey legislature in 1967. The Garden State went to Nixon in 1968. This year, the Democrats made substantial gains in the Legislature, though the Republicans stayed in control.

While these elections don't mean all the Democrats say they do, they should give the President some food for thought.

The Greek word for pebble is "psephos." In Athens, citizens used to vote by casting pebbles. Consequently, the word "psephology" has come to mean "the study of voter behavior."

In their book The Real Majority, Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg laid claim to this word as a description for the science in which they were engaged. By analyzing various election results and polls, they came to the conclusion that candidates who fell outside of the "political center" would lose elections, and that Democrats (or anyone else) who soft-peddled the law and order issue would certainly lose. They saw a new issue emerging in America, "the social issue," which encompassed the sorts of fears which elected Frank Rizzo in Philadelphia. If the Democrats neutralize the social issue by talking tough, then they say, they will be able to win by returning to the Scammon version of the "economic issues," which turns out to be bread-and-butter liberalism. The authors are almost certainly busy at work now on an article showing how the 1971 elections further confirmed their thesis.

There is, to be sure, a "social issue" in America, and it did show up yesterday. But it came down to far more than fears about crime and integration. It also includes resentments against power companies and banks and established interests--whether liberal or conservative. While Kentucky, and to a lesser extent, New Jersey, indicated that conventional appeals to old fashioned Democratic issues can be effective, and while Frank Rizzo demonstrated that law and order still has punch, Henry Howell in Virginia and the corporation tax referendum in Florida indicate that "the social issue" may extend far beyond law-and-order. In which case we will all have to re-examine our pebbles.