Word: schmoke
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Mayor of Baltimore Kurt L. Schmoke made national news last week when, before a gathering of the country's mayors in Washington, D.C., suggested that Congress set up a committee to reconsider America's current drug policies...
Other victors included Kurt Schmoke, a Democratic prosecutor who became the first Black elected mayor in Baltimore, and Democratic state legislator Carrie Saxon Perry, 56, winner in Hartford's city hall race and the first Black woman chosen to lead a major Northeastern city...
...some blacks he symbolizes what the Rev. Douglas Miles, a Baltimore religious leader, calls the "promise of what has historically been touted as the best of the black community -- squeaky clean, intellectual and an achiever." Schmoke was a star quarterback in high school and student-body president at Yale, served as an aide to President Jimmy Carter, and was appointed an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Baltimore. Running for office for the first time in 1982, he was elected the city's state's attorney...
Surprisingly, that background did not overly impress Baltimore's white voters last week; they preferred the more folksy Burns, 64% to 36%, perhaps because he was backed by the popular Schaefer. But Schmoke won 61% of the black vote and squeaked to victory with a bare 51% of the ballots. His Republican opponent in the general election will be Samuel Culotta, 62, who is white...
...stiff on the stump but unflappable under attack and congenial close up, Schmoke is modest about his accomplishments. "From the earliest age, there have been people who recognized in me an ability to do better than I thought I could, and they pushed me," he says. Schmoke downplays racial politics, contending that a leader's role is "to try to get people to see their commonality rather than their differences." His early ideal as a black politician was Republican Edward Brooke, the former Massachusetts Senator. Schmoke's impressive start may make him a model for a generation of politicians...