Cleveland: Vindicative Victory

Barely 2$ hours after the polls closed, commentators on two of Cleveland's TV and radio stations confidently predicted that incumbent Mayor Ralph S. Locher would win the Democratic Party nomination for another term. That seemed reasonable enough, since, with 70% of the ballots counted, the three-term mayor had a 10,000-vote edge over his closest opponent, Carl B. Stokes, a Negro. Yet within ten minutes, articulate, kinetic Stokes went before the TV cameras and confidently—and correctly—predicted his own victory in the primary. When it came, a short time thereafter, he exulted to Cleveland voters: "You have vindicated my faith in American democracy."

The triumph vaulted State Representative Stokes, 40, son of a laundry worker, into position as a slight favorite to become the first elected Negro mayor of a U.S. metropolis in November. His opponent then will be Liberal Republican Seth Taft, 44, grandson of the 27th President and cousin of Ohio Congressman Robert Taft.

Slickest Team. To those who had watched his carefully conducted campaign, Stokes's nomination came as no surprise. Ever since Stokes—then running as an independent—lost to Locher by 2,143 votes in the general election two years ago, he had been applying himself to the problem of carrying a city in which 62% of the registered electorate was white and the regular Democratic Party machinery was solidly behind Mayor Locher.

His answer was to put together one of the slickest campaign teams ever to operate in Cleveland. Negro and white volunteers flocked to his support, forming an active core of 3,000 workers in ten branch offices throughout the city. Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King traveled to Cleveland to campaign for him. All told, Stokes's volunteers distributed 60,000 bumper stickers (to Locher's 14,000), passed out another 60,000 door knob notices.

Stokes's energy and good taste in refusing to turn the campaign into a racist contest earned him influential support from the city's business community and the endorsement of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He was helped, too, by Locher's pallid campaign and mediocre six-year record as mayor. Cleveland's afternoon newspaper, the Press, refused to support Locher as it had in previous elections; while expressing a mild preference for Dark Horse Frank P. Celeste (who ended up with only 4.1% of the vote), the Press declared Stokes an acceptable alternative.

Tolerance & Toughness. Counting on the support of Cleveland's 120,000 registered Negroes, Lawyer Stokes concentrated his efforts on the white community in the city's West Side. He assured the white voters that he would be mayor first and a Negro second—a claim that was supported by his record during three terms in the state house of representatives, where he has sponsored bills for state laws controlling riots and the sale of firearms. He has refused to support establishment of a civilian review board for the police, but he vowed, if elected, to fire Police Chief Richard Wagner for being insensitive to the city's racial problems. He hit at the Locher administration's weaknesses: lagging urban renewal, lethargic leadership, and festering discontent in the slums. His campaign was a shrewd mixture of tolerance and toughness.