Word: koch
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Most elected officials maintain an image. New York City's Mayor Ed Koch flaunts a style: confident, snappish, moralistic and salty as a delicatessen waiter's banter. For better or worse, he has come to symbolize the world's one-dimensional view of a New Yorker: an abrasive pavement-pounder who is allergic to trees. Koch obliged this perception after taking over Gracie Mansion in 1977; he kept his small apartment in Greenwich Village as a weekend retreat. He was not being cute; those who have followed the mayor's career should now realize that...
...diminishes one's enemies. Or, better yet, enhances one's self by diminishing one's enemies. Mayor: An Autobiography reads like the morning after a night of the long knives - smart, ebullient, witty, vengeful and damaging. Who can ever again think of Bella Abzug without remembering Koch's cruel wisecrack? Asked why Abzug lost her home district in a 1972 congressional primary, he replied, "Her neighbors know...
...list now contains dozens of former city officials, like his one time deputy mayor Herman Badillo ("You worry about Herman because even when he is your friend he can do terrible things"), and a legion of rivals and hecklers Koch dismisses as "wackos...
...mayor and the 39th President clashed during the 1980 campaign. Carter badly needed a prominent Jew to pull in the Jewish vote, but Koch had his price: a substantial federal takeover of the city's Medicaid payments and a more active pro-Israel position in a hostile United Nations. Carter was forced to concede, and a grudgingly satisfied mayor set off to stump Brooklyn and Miami Beach, telling his aides, "It's amazing what fear will...
...office is not as daring as the author would have his readers believe. There are hugs and kisses for loyal friends and aides, a few acknowledgments of worthy opponents, but mostly he comes down harder on ex-officeholders than on powerful incumbents. New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who defeated Koch in the bitter 1982 Democratic gubernatorial primary, gets good grades for being tough on unions and wise in his staff appointments. Ronald Reagan ("He thinks like a studio executive") was treated shrewdly from the start. During the 1980 campaign, Koch distressed fellow Democrats by briefing the Republican candidate...