Holy Schmoke! A star debuts in Baltimore

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The winning candidate flashes a toothpaste smile and a boyish charm. He wears button-down shirts, pleated slacks and wire-rimmed glasses that suggest his Ivy League background. Clearly, Kurt Schmoke, 37, winner of the Democratic mayoral primary in Baltimore, represents a new breed of big-city black politician. He is no graduate of the clubhouse system dominated for some 30 years by William Schaefer, Baltimore's respected former white mayor, who was elected Governor of Maryland last November. Instead, Schmoke, a Rhodes scholar, is out of Yale, Harvard Law School and Oxford. Last week he defeated a black politician from the old school, Clarence ("Du") Burns, 69, who had climbed through the ranks to become city council president and Schaefer's interim replacement as mayor. Having won the primary in a city where 88% of the voters are Democrats, Schmoke next month will almost certainly become the first black to be elected mayor of Baltimore.

To 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.

A bit 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 to come.