Word: epton
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...after the election, Washington was host at a unity luncheon. He was flanked by the two rivals he had defeated in the Democratic primary last February: Jane Byrne, the departing mayor, and Richard Daley, son of the legendary boss. Bernard Epton, last Tuesday's Republican loser, skulked off to Florida, leaving his brother to fill in at the lunch. Epton's lack of grace seemed to diminish rather than heighten the tensions: at that moment, it was hard to argue that the better man had lost...
...evident in the campaign. Across the city, the turnout was a record: almost 80% of those registered cast ballots. Washington carried many black wards by more than 95% of the vote. In the 24th Ward on the heavily black West Side, for example, he tallied 24,259 votes to Epton's 129. He handily won all 19 of the city's black wards and took almost 60% of the Hispanic vote...
Conversely, the white ethnic wards, which have voted solidly Democratic since William ("Big Bill") Thompson was elected the last Republican mayor in 1927, went heavily for Epton. In the Polish-Irish-Russian 13th Ward on the Southwest Side, Epton took 34,856 votes to Washington's 1,457. Even the famed Eleventh Ward of Bridgeport, the bedrock Democratic base of the late Mayor Daley, voted overwhelmingly Republican. Holding the electoral balance were the city's six affluent "Lakefront Liberal" wards. Undecided until the very end, they finally gave Washington 40% of their vote, enough to assure...
...there seems little chance of reconciliation, with an Epton supporter commenting after the polls closed. "Now the Blacks'll get real cocky. There's gonna be trouble for sure...
...Washington wants to tear down the system," said Greg Smith, while handing out Epton buttons. "He thinks patronage is bad Patronage has kept this city running efficiently for five generations...