Word: epton
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There may be other issues in the Chicago election in addition to the fact that Democrat Harold Washington, 60, an undistinguished Congressman with a disconcerting disregard for filing income tax returns happens to be black, and that Republican Bernard Epton, 61, an equally undistinguished former state legislator happens to be white. But it was getting increasingly hard to find any. The racial partisanship that dragged the mayoral race to a new low last week removed any doubt that next Tuesday's election was, alas, likely to turn out to be essentially a black-and-white matter...
Before last month, Chicago's Bernie Epton was a nobody. The sparse press coverage given the Republican contender for mayor was often limited to observations about how little respect Epton got, even from members of his own party, who not long ago convened in Chicago without inviting him to join party officials on the dais (he sat in the back of the hall). But that was before Harold Washington's upset win in the Democratic primary...
...with next week's election condensed to a one-on-one battle. Epton's campaign has been marked by the use of ads that overtly seek to stir up fear and hatred at the likelihood of a Black man serving as mayor. One particularly offensive television ad has an ominously becoming voice warning Chicagoans to "Vote for Epton--before it's too rate...
...Epton and his supporters have tried to explain this and other virulent attacks on Washington as responses to his less than angelic past, which features a 30-day jail sentence for failing to pay about $500 of taxes and a temporary disbarment. Oddly enough, many of the people who stress Washington's tax evasion are the same ones who stood silently for decades, blithely watching the infamous Chicago political machine commit every conceivable brand of corruption and electoral fraud. Washington's 30 days should definitely be remembered by voters--they are an ugly blotch on his record--but the sudden...
...they seek. Prejudiced whites in Chicago and New York, in their fearful haste to bar Blacks from positions of political authority, condemn residents of those cities to suffer under the uninspired, under-prepared men of mediocrity they throw in as buffers. The sooner demagogic purveyors of racial fears like Epton and Koch are made unwelcome, the sooner "merit" can truly improve the quality of leadership in America...