Young may get last Detroit laugh

liy KEITh it. RICHBURG
Coleman Young is sitting pretty.
As a candidate for mayor of Detroit,
he has everything going for him. He en-
joys the support of both the black com-
munity and of influential businessmen
like Henry Ford 11 Ie's got powerful
friends that extend all the way to the
President of the United States (politics
makes strange bedfellows). And whether
Coleman Young had anything to do with
it or not, the economy is good, the budget
is stable, and, believe it or not, crime
really is down.
Moreover Coleman Young is the mayor,
and as a candidate that's the best posi-
tion he could ever be in.
JUST LIKE Richard Nixon's 1972 cam-
paign strategy of "looking presidential,"
and something akin to Gerald Ford's 1976
campaign -from the White House Rose
Garden, Coleman Young plans to cam-
paign just by being mayor - and let-
ting people know it.
His bumper stickers read simply
"Mayor Young," and although the green
on white is borrowed from Jimmy Car-
ter, the imige of the hard-working in-
cumbent, standing above the hustle-bustle
of politics, reeks of Nixon and Ford.
And like it or not, the "hard-work-
ing mayor" seems even money as the
at-odds favorite to win another four
years in the Manoogian Mansion.
How Coleman Young Mayor fell into
such a favorable position - when just
last year, he seemed vulnerable on sev-
eral fronts - is a combination of fac-
tors, most of which Young had noth-
ing to do with, but which, as mayor, he
is privileged to enjoy.
ONE IS THE LACK of a strong con-
tender, and in the odd mixture of Detroit
voters, a "strong" contender is one who
can appeal to both end of the political
spectrum.
Detroit is polarized between black
and white voters, the latter of which
tend to be more conservative than the
former. The city is still about 50-50 black!
white, and the equalizing factor is a
small but staunch liberal community,,
of which Coleman Young enjoys sup-
port from his days as a union leader

oratOr and civil rights leader.
The candidates lining up against
Young are also Young's best asset. De-
troit City Councilman Ernest Browne is
making his appeal to the moderates
(and whether he admits it or not, the
conservatives) of both races. What he
doesn't realize is the black white po-
larity is still there, and white conserva-
and a Wayne State University soapbox

tives aren't about to vote for a black
for mayor.
Instead, they'll give their votes to
Wayne State University Law Professor
John Mogk, the "walking" candidate
from 1973 who came in late and fin-
ished fourth after a walking campaign
across the city.
MOGK ENJOYS a background as a

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liberal, but with his stand on bringing
a police decoy unit back to Detroit,
conjuring up images of the feared
STRESS (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe
Streets), and with a proven liberal in
Coleman Young, the liberal community
isn't about to shift its support.
What it boils down to is Mogk and
Browne carving up the anti-Young votes
in the primary September 3rd, carving
it, up along those infamous racial lines.
Mogk has a better chance of surviv-
ing a primary battle, merely because
more whites than blacks are disenchant-
ed with Coleman Young.
Then again, there is always the possi-
bility of the two top contenders killing
off each other in' the primary, handing
the gauntlet to an unknown and unlikely
backfield runner like suburban business-
man Thomas Daley.
And Coleman Young, sitting up in his
11th floor office of the city-county build-
ing, not soiling his hands with the main-
stream of politics, couldn't hope for
more.
ALREADY YOUNG has built a war-
chest of donations from $100 a-plate fund-
raisers and generous benefactors, and he
raisers and generous benefactors, and
he's saving it all for a last minute media
blitz the other candidates, struggling for
support, won't be able to match.
And where are the issues in the midst
of all this political analysis? Needless
to say, they either get lost or fall on
deaf ears.
There are issues, of course: housing,
neighborhood improvements, crime, the
list goes on. But Coleman Young Mayor
can make the issues from his 11th floor
office, where the other candidates can't.
Not unlike the 1972 presidential cam-
paign, where Nixon made a dramatic
trip to Peking and announced "Peace
is at hand" in Southeast Asia, Coleman
Young can point to the new Renaissance
Center, the lower crime statistics, the
riverfront construction and the Wood-
ward Avenue Mall; the real issues get
lost in the process, no matter how loud
the other candidates shout.
After all, in 1972, George McGovern
shouted issues at the top of his lungs,
and all it got him was one state and
the District of Columbia.

Eighty-Seveis Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tuesday, July 12, 1977 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by studentS at the University of Michigan
Kent State monument must stay

Letters to the Daily

T WAS- NEITHER long ago nor far
away when four students were killed
and nine others injured on the cam-
pus of Kent State University, in the
midst of an anti-war demonstration.
That period of violence in protest of
violence is one which cannot and,
should not be forgotten.
But Kent State officials apparently
believe the time has come to dismiss
the shootings' as a bygone, and to let
them be. Those officials claim the
need for a gymnasium annex which
would encroach upon Blanket Hill
(the name of the field where the stu-
dents were shot) is more important
than the preservation of the only real
monument we have to that age of
protest.

voluntarily until the gym project is
dropped. That group has sworn non-
violence.
The university officials also swear
to nonviolence, and after serving the
protesters with an ultimatum to leave
the grounds or face arrest, university
officials are drafting a court injunc-
tion. While battling in the courts,
the officials also-denounce the May
Fourth Coaltion because not all mem-
bers are Kent State students.
Although the issue to build a gym-
nasium is a Kent State issue, the
issue to preserve Blanket Hill is not.
It was but a symbol 'to a nation of
student protesters. It is .an issue of
national concern; it is a national
monument which r e m i n d s us the
Kent State shootings could have hap-
pened anywhere. We cannot make it

Dade County, U.S.A.
To The Daily:
The Board of Directors of the Ameri-
can Civil Liberties Union of Washte-
naw County has been following with
interest and alarm the controversy
stirred up by Anita' Bryant in Dade
County Florida. It_ is frightening to
think that laws protecting people's
civil rights snd civil liberties can be
voted away.
We remind you and your-readers
that in this country there are consti-
tutional protections guaranteed to all
people. Life styles, race, sex, religion
and sexual orientations have no bear-
ing on the protections offered under
the coanstitution. Homosexuals\ have
constitutional rights because they are
'human beings and U.S. citizens and
these cannot be voted away by a
referendum in Dade County or any-
where else.
The American Civil Liberties Union
has long been a defender of rights
for all people, including homosexuals,
and stands ready to continue that de-
fense. We believe it is important for
the public to understand our position.
What follows represents ACLU policy
respecting homosexuality:
0 Homosexuals are entitled to the
same rights, liberties, lack of har-
rassment and protections as are other
citizens.

or homosexual, of consenting adults.
Thus the ACLU opposes criminal re-
straint on any homosexual behavior,
between or among consenting adults
in privacy, or in public unless the
same restraint applies to heterosexual
behavior. Criminalization of these acts
is a violation of the right of individual
privacy. Such conduct is a matter of
individual judgment, but not a con-
cern of penal statutes of the state.
i Just as governmental dicrimina-
tion by race, alienage, religion or sex
is a denial of equal protection, so too
is governmental discrimination on the
basis of sexual or affectional prefer-
ence. Homosexuality per se implies
no disability that would justify such
discrimination
* The ACLU opposes limitations on
the custody and visitation rights of
parents when such limitations are
based solely on the parents sexual
preference.
f The ACLU opposes governmental
or private attempts to prevent homo-
sexuals from speaking out about homo-
sexuality and from forming and sus-
taining political and social groups on
or off school campuses.
* The ACLU supports passage of
legislation to eliminate governmental
and private discrimination against
homosexuals.

0 The rights of individual privacy,