The Urban Voter by Kaufmann Karen M.;

Author:Kaufmann, Karen M.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Press

5 “Vote Your Hopes, Not Your

Fears”: New York, 1965 to 1993

The political flavor of New York City mayoral politics is in many ways a sharp departure from that of Los Angeles. In New York, racial, ethnic, and religious identities have always played an important role in the city’s governance and its electoral politics. Although the contemporary dividing lines in New York City have shifted away from the interethnic cleavages among white voters that were so prominent in the earlier half of the twentieth century to the interracial cleavages that are so prevalent today, the city’s political history is nonetheless a long tale of successive battles over conflicting group interests (Reibstein 1969). Candidates continue to make strong group-based campaign appeals, and group-based voting is essentially the norm.

While the Los Angeles elections discussed in the prior two chapters illustrate the ebb and flow of political conflict and how changes in the political context effect changes in the basis for voting behavior, the New York elections represent considerably less variability. Racial group interests have been a central and salient feature of mayoral voting behavior since Liberal party candidate John Lindsay’s reelection in 1969. What is so fascinating about contemporary New York City politics is that the issues and attitudes that dominate local voting behavior have changed so little since then. In contrast to the mayoral politics of Los Angeles, New York City politics are almost always played out on a conflictual canvas. Group interests and group identities consistently seem to matter.

Prior to the 1960s, religion was the predominant political cleavage in New York City. Catholics and Jews represented the two largest religious groups, and they routinely competed for power and political influence. During this era, city politics were dominated by the Irish and Italian Catholics. Changing demography, however—the growing numbers of blacks and Puerto Ricans in the city and the increasing flight of white Catholics to the suburbs—mitigated the power and presence of Catholic leadership. Historically, Jews in New York had been more politically liberal than the Catholics; as such, it was not uncommon for Jews to align with black voters in support of more liberal candidates. Increasing racial conflict in the 1960s, however, strained the political ties between African-Americans and Jews in New York, and beginning in the late 1960s Jewish voters, especially those living in the outer boroughs, began voting with their Irish and Italian counterparts.

Obviously, in the aftermath of New York’s primaries and election campaign of 1969, it hardly seems as though religion defines the present, or the future, major fissures in New York life. Race has exploded to swallow up all other distinctions, or so it would appear at the moment. (Glazer and Moynihan 1970, viii)

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.