Word: sam
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Though Los Angeles politics are nominally nonpartisan, Sam was, in fact, the first Democrat elected mayor in more than 50 years. That should have made California Democrats happy, but it emphatically did not. Sam had already shown his maverick streak by supporting Republican Richard Nixon against Jack Kennedy in 1960 after his first choice, Lyndon Johnson, had lost to J.F.K. for the Democratic nomination. When Nixon ran for the California governorship against Pat Brown...
...Sam pointedly withheld an endorsement of Brown, has been haunting his fellow Democrat ever since. After easily winning re-election against Jimmy Roosevelt last year, Yorty confronted Brown more directly, challenged him in this summer's gubernatorial primary. Attacking the two-term Governor as "the captive of left-wingers," Yorty polled nearly 1,000,000 votes (v. 1,300,000 for Brown), a strong enough showing to make Republican Candidate Ronald Reagan's chances against Brown in November look mighty favorable...
Yorty's appeal to the voters is based partly on his skill as a hard-punching public speaker. More important, he goes after the big guns, wears no man's collar and follows a pragmatic, undoctrinaire course that arouses Californians' sense of individualism. Sam Yorty is no organization...
...schools are congested and inferior. The job of getting to the roots of poverty has fallen largely on state and federal agencies and private industry, which together have created perhaps 12,000 jobs for South Los Angeles Negroes since the Watts riots. For what remains wrong with Watts, Sam Yorty gets much of the blame...
Beyond Authority. Sam Yorty can rightfully say that he lacks the power to do many of the things that need doing. He himself once said: "Any man who reads beyond the second paragraph of the city charter would be out of his mind to run for mayor." But Yorty ran and won, and he has shown by his actions as mayor that, when he wants to, he can exert a good deal more power and responsibility than he admits to having. Despite his faults and his constant feuds-Angelenos tend to be either 100% for him or 100% against...