Mayoral Election in New York City

The recent mayoral election in New York City appeared on the surface to be a replay of the 1989 election, with the two frontrunners being David Dinkins and Rudolph Giuliani in both cases. However, the dynamics of the race were quite different in the two elections. In the first, Dinkins, the more Democratic candidate, ran as much against the disintegration and uncertainty of the previous Koch Administration as he did against Giuliani, and ultimately he prevailed with a huge portion of the black vote and a share of the white vote, including--and even especially--the Jewish vote, always important in New York City. In the most recent election, Dinkins was saddled with the reality of his own four years in office and with a number of major failures involving the growing racial tensions in the city, and this time Giuliani prevailed as Dinkins lost much of that Jewish vote after the Crown Heights affair. an examination of the 1993 election will show some of the problems facing the city today, many of the forces having a political influence in the city at this time, and some of the ramifications of this election for both the city and the national political scene.

Crown Heights was the shorthand term for the anti-Jewish riots of August 1991, Crown Heights being the east Brooklyn neighborhood where the riots started. The riots began when a car in the entourage of the Lubavitcher rebbe, a Hasidic Jewish religious leader, accidentally struck and killed a black child, and for three

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e individual responsibility for their lives and welfare. Giuliani believes that New York can learn a lot from Philadelphia and Indianapolis in terms of how to run a city. Giuliani also argues that the scope of government must be reconsidered to reduce the city's tax burden and also because increases in federal aid are unlikely at this time. Giuliani wants to privatize three or four of the city's municipal hospitals and to turn over Kennedy Airport to private interests. He also pledges to cut 35,000 jobs from the city work force over a four-year period (Mitchell, 1993, 1, 16). The campaign was waged with television ads, personal appearances, and interviews as each candidate both promoted their own issues and interests and attacked those of the other candidate. Dinkins started his campaign with a television commercial using rousing music in a "Heartbeat of America"-style campaign. Giuliani, on the other hand, started his with a grainy, low-key ad evoking the grittiness of New York's streets. These ads were in part a reflection of the men hired by each candidate as consultants. Dinkins hired David Doak and Bob Shrum, who favor the sort of rousing ad they produced for Dinkins. David Garth was media consultant for Giuliani

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