Yorty's Chortle

Los Angeles' Democratic Mayor Samuel William Yorty, 55, easily won another four-year term in office last week, and he had found the competition so inept during the campaign that he couldn't resist chortling on election night: "If I had been my own opponent, I could have done a better job at finding fault with my record."

Sam was certainly right. His top rival in the nonpartisan mayoralty race was Democratic Congressman James Roosevelt. But the Roosevelt name evoked no magic whatsoever; Jimmy was loaded with dough but light on ideas. He put up hundreds of billboards, handed out bales of bumper stickers and buttons, appeared often on television with 15-minute and half-hour shows, plus so many other spots that his electronic omnipresence became irksome. Jimmy's campaign cost around $450,000. Yorty spent less than half that amount.

Vainly, Jimmy tried to find an issue --any issue--to hang his campaign on. He called Yorty a stooge of Democrat Jesse ("Big Daddy") Unruh, the controversial California assembly speaker. He attacked Yorty's membership in a segregated private club, endlessly criticized Yorty for having a bad temper.

Sam Yorty is certainly irascible, but he held his temper throughout the campaign, seemed almost cool in contrast to Jimmy. He pointed to the fact that he had cut city taxes, streamlined city government and improved garbage pickups. He outpolled Roosevelt 392,775 to 247,313, picked up 57.9% of the vote to Jimmy's 36.5%, with the rest going to six nonentities on the ballot.

Still, everything was not a total loss for the Roosevelts. Most of Jimmy's leftover ROOSEVELT FOR MAYOR stickers were already on their way to Miami Beach, where Brother Elliott is running for the same office.

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