Word: lesinski
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Senator to carry is Michigan. There is usually a Democratic majority there and considerable evidence of strong frontlash this year, especially n the suburbs outside Detroit. White backlash is apparently not as strong in Michigan as in some large industrial states; in a key primary, seven-term Congressman John Lesinski, the only northern Democrat to vote against the civil rights bill, was beaten by his more liberal colleague John Dingell. Lesinski's defeat shows that hard work, particularly on the part of labor unions like the giant U.A.W. Local 600, can overcome backlash sentiment even where civil rights...
...Obvious Issue. There, after redistricting last April, Incumbent Con- gressmen John Dingell, 38, and John Lesinski, 49, found themselves running against each other. Both men are of Polish extraction. Both are the sons of Congressmen: Dingell's father served the old 15th District from 1932 until his death in 1955; Lesinski's father represented the old 16th from 1933 until his death in 1950. The Dingells were liberals and champions of the Negroes, who comprised some 46% of the population in their longtime constituency. The Lesinskis stood fast against any Negro penetration of their own home ground...
Predictably, Dingell this year voted in Congress for the civil rights bill, while Lesinski was the only Northern Democratic Congressman to vote against it. Dingell's vote took some courage. In Michigan's redistricting, he lost most of his old Negro constituency, faced Lesinski in a new district that included 80% of Lesinski's old territory and was 90% white...
...district, bordered by Negro neighborhoods and beset by fears of black incursions, the backlash, so everybody thought, was an "obvious" issue. Dingell accused Lesinski's followers of "trying to use it. They're raising the bogeyman, telling people that if I'm elected there will be two Negro families on every block in Dearborn." Lesinski indeed raised some bogeymen. "The other day," he cried in a typical speech, "a 35-year-old man was set upon and stabbed by four colored fellows. He was stabbed to death. It didn't appear...
Time to Count Again. To believers in the backlash theory, Lesinski's victory seemed a cinch. But Dingell won by a vote of 30,791 to 25,620. In a district that was clearly liberal on almost every issue other than civil rights, his liberal record was the big difference. Moreover, as Dingell himself said, with more accuracy than modesty: "I can make an understandable and intelligent speech, where my opponent, frankly, cannot...