Word: rizzo
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...Philadelphia's police commissioner from 1967 until early this year, Frank Rizzo was a burly monument to law-and-order. He ran the force with an iron hand and the instincts of a street fighter from South Philadelphia where he was raised. During his career, when heads were banged, white or more often black, Rizzo frequently made it a point to be there to do the banging. "I am," he often boasted, a thick finger stabbing the air, "the toughest cop in America." Last week in an emotional Democratic primary, Rizzo, 50, rolled over liberal Congressman William J. Green...
...issue of race was never far from the surface, and it was clearly reflected in the voting patterns. Rizzo captured 49% of the vote, amassing up to 80% majorities in white working-class and middle-class areas. Green, 32, son and namesake of the longtime Philadelphia political boss who died in 1963, polled only 35%, despite glittering endorsements from Senators John Tunney and Edward Kennedy and the tardy backing of Pennsylvania Governor Milton J. Shapp. Green ran most strongly in black wards and well-to-do Chestnut Hill...
...though, none of this could change the minds of those voters who were choosing a candidate on the basis of law and order. And Rizzo was an ideal physical counterpart of the law and order issue. He is enormous, heavy-set and tough-talking. He's the sort of man you'd want as a bodyguard, and apparently that's what Philadelphia's voters wanted last Tuesday...
...Rizzo's victory, when taken together with Mayor Daley's overwhelming victory in Chicago last month, indicates something about what people are now looking for in a Mayor. In the 1950's, urban voters seemed to be electing administrators like Robert Wagner who were capable of delivering basic services like garbage collection and street cleaning in an efficient way. In the middle '60's, city voters elected dynamic and aggressive liberals like Jerome Cavanaugh in Detroit and John Lindsay in New York. Voters seemed to accept the existence of "the urban crisis" and put their hopes in young liberals...
City voters still recognize that an urban crisis exists, but they seem to be thinking of it in other terms. Rizzo was the candidate of Mavor Tate's machine, and he called upon voters to reject Green and the "lef?ies" who surrounded him. Like Daley, Rizzo is neither young nor liberal. Voters supported both men because they played upon voters' fears and embodied their new ideas as to what should be done for the cities. It is understandable (though unfortunate) that voters should oppose liberals but it's frightening that they have chosen men like Rizzo and Daley...