Search for an Heir

Arlen Specter, 37, entered Philadelphia's mayoralty campaign last spring with overwhelming advantages. He was already well known and popular as an able investigator and prosecutor. On the hustings he demonstrated the intelligence, presence and reformist approach that had elected him district attorney in 1965--the first Republican to win a major city wide office in 14 years. Democratic Mayor James Tate, 57, bore the triple burden of a mediocre record, a ponderous personality and a divided party. But instead of pleading nolo contendere, Tate has doggedly chipped away at Specter's seemingly unassailable early lead.

The challenger's main thrust has been to accuse Tate's administration of being "more interested in patronage and favoritism than in moving the city ahead," of turning the City of Brotherly Love into "Shakedown, U.S.A." When Specter demands that Tate name his campaign contributors--donors who, says Specter, stand to get official favors from Tate--the mayor demurs,. While Specter makes points with this strategy, Tate's arsenal contains a heavy weapon that Specter's lacks: an emotional issue of major impact.

Turn to Fudge. Last summer, Tate imposed a state of limited emergency as a precaution against racial violence and fully backed Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo, who mobilized massive force at the least hint of trouble. Having dominated the front pages all summer, Tate is now able to declaim: "While other cities were being burned, sacked and pillaged, Philadelphia had law and order." When Tate demands to know if Specter, as mayor, would keep the controversial Rizzo in office, it is the D.A.'s turn to fudge. To take a stand on Rizzo would alienate either those who considered the commissioner's tactics repressive or those who found them highly effective.

Nor has Specter's claim of sole possession of reform credentials gone unchallenged. Specter switched parties in 1965 when Democratic leaders refused him the nomination for district attorney or state senator. To win he must attract other defectors, because Philadelphia Democrats enjoy a registration edge over Republicans of 560,000 to 370,000. With the help of an endorsement from the Americans for Democratic Action, he depicts himself as the true legatee of the progressive Democratic administrations of Joseph Clark and Richardson Dilworth. Specter's problem here is that Tate does not present a convenient conservative contrast.

The mayor generally follows a liberal Democratic line, has organized labor on his side, and asserts that he, not the "fake liberal" Specter, is the "rightful heir of Clark and Dilworth." Clark, now Pennsylvania's senior Senator, has campaigned with Tate, and this week Vice President Hubert Humphrey is scheduled to appear on Tate's behalf.

Lapsed Fluency. Whether Tate can win again Nov. 7 is another question. Negro wards supplied much of his plurality when he won his first full term in 1963. This time, however, two Negro candidates are running on independent tickets, and Tate's tough stance in the ghettos will probably further erode his Negro support. All the same, Specter is still a long way from city hall. Realizing he must press hard, Specter, who is Jewish, allowed himself a lapse from good taste last week when he quipped that the Irish Catholic Tate was attending "a Communion breakfast in a brewery." Actually, it was a brewery workers' breakfast held in a church hall. Tate leaped on the crack as an insult to Catholics, and Specter publicly apologized. Having shown a 2-to-l advantage in the early opinion polls, Specter's lead over Tate in the latest samplings has dropped to 47% v. 41%, with the rest divided among splinter candidates or undecided.

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