Word: barbagelata
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...Conservatives criticized her for leaving the current administration of Art Agnos with a "shortfall" of $140 million in the 1988-89 budget and for catering to minorities, especially the increasingly powerful gay community. "As a supervisor, all she could think of was tax, tax, tax," snaps retired realtor John Barbagelata, who had been her longtime Republican archenemy on the board of supervisors. "And as mayor, she was ambitious, selfish, expedient and hypocritical...
...when all else fails, there is always her abiding ability to disarm friend and foe alike. On the evening of Agnos' inauguration as current mayor, Barbagelata and his wife Angela were having dinner with a group of friends at Trader Vic's, off Taylor Street, when they saw the tall figures of Feinstein and her husband saunter into the restaurant. Feinstein immediately came over, threw out her arms and said, grinning, "C'mon, John, you ole curmudgeon, give me a kiss!" Barbagelata complied. "What could I do?" he says ruefully. "She's a charmer...
Both Moscone and Barbagelata opposed the mayor's action, and both men acknowledged that New York's fiscal crisis was what the voters wanted most to avoid. Barbagelata campaigned almost exclusively in conservative middle-and upper-middle income areas, and during the last week of his campaign widely distributed a newsletter warning of the perils of a New York-crisis. Moscone countered with pledges that he would carefully weigh union demands without knuckling under to organized labor...
Runoff day brought a respectable turnout of 65.7%. Moscone picked up a slim early lead, and never led Barbagelata by more than 5,000 votes. In the end, he squeaked through by a count of 101,528 to 97,213-nothing to shout about in what Barbagelata describes as "the most liberal city in the nation...
California Pollster Mervin Field interpreted the election results as a "checkerboard pattern." Property owners, the elderly and people on fixed incomes voted for Barbagelata. Minorities, renters, and the relatively young opted for Moscone. The election, said Field, shows two kinds of tides. "One is the ebbing tide of traditional liberal, labor and cultural concepts-the idea that government can do it for you. Against this is the rising tide of the 'new conservatism'-which is related to fear about crime, the inability to get services from government, and fiscal responsibility." Both candidates agreed that the election showed...