Nation: Exile for Elliott

He should have been a shoo-in. His first two-year term as mayor of Miami Beach had been honest and productive. He had become a popular, familiar figure about town. More important, in a city where more than 40% are old enough (the median age: 59) for the welfare benefits initiated by his father, Elliott Roosevelt had a magic name.

Nonetheless, Miami Beach voters last week rejected Elliott by a vote of 10,692 to 8,455 in a nonpartisan runoff, electing in his place a political novice, Attorney Jay Dermer, 37. Roosevelt (whose losing margin roughly equaled his winning ratio in 1965) may have been a remote casualty of the Middle East war, which had a galvanic effect on Miami Beach residents, a substantial majority of whom are Jewish. While the last of F.D.R.'s sons still in public office used his father's old campaign song, Happy Days Are Here Again, Dermer alternated speeches in Yiddish with addresses by his Israeli-born wife in Hebrew.