A Challenge to Daley

Why would anybody besides Richard Daley want to run for mayor of Chicago? "Because I care about this city," says Richard Friedman, 41, a gaunt and forceful lawyer who climbs mountains from the Andes to the Hindu Kush, treks through South American jungles and African deserts, flies gliders and balloons, works out with his judo class twice a week, and likes to squire Second City beauties around in his Porsche 911.

A lot of people besides the Tru-deauesque young Friedman care about Chicago, but few would choose to take on the unpromising task of running against Mayor Daley, his loyal army of Democratic jobholders and what Friedman calls his honor's "myth of invincibility." But Friedman sought out the job from the Republican organization, managed to raise a skimpy $200,000, and launched his campaign at a dead run. "Let's go!" says the candidate, jumping into his leased and unmarked Mercury. "Let's move!" Traveling with Friedman, reports TIME Correspondent Sam Iker, "is more like fleeing from a bank holdup than leaving a political gathering." By averaging ten hard-hitting neighborhood appearances a day for the past two months, Friedman has at least reached the point where his campaign is being taken seriously.

Placating the Whites. The people of Chicago have never heard his honor treated so roughly. "Daley the builder?" queries Friedman. "No, Daley the destroyer. Daley the manager? No, Daley the bungler." From storefront to street corner, he declares in his low-key voice: "We're going to sweep that aging, corrupt, manipulating politician out of city hall."

The campaign's most explosive issue is public housing. Ever since 1966, the Chicago Housing Authority's policy has been to erect public housing in predominantly black areas. But last year Federal Judge Richard Austin ordered the authority to produce a plan by which low-income housing projects would be scattered throughout the city, and last month he forced the authority to announce the plan immediately.

Daley quickly denounced the plan, thereby placating blue-collar whites who were seething over the prospect of low-income (i.e., black) housing in their neighborhoods. The plan was at fault, said the mayor, for failing to locate some of the projects in the suburbs. Crying "race politics," Friedman charged that Daley had "suppressed" the part of the authority's report that called for 500 suburban housing sites.

Friedman's claim was partially confirmed later by a Housing Authority official. But it did not really solve his basic problem: how to satisfy angry, working-class, white homeowners without alienating his liberal, dissident Democratic and black support.

Daley's Darlin's. Nobody predicts that Friedman will defeat Daley for a fifth four-year term next week. But he has waged a more vigorous mayoralty campaign than Chicagoans have seen in many a year, and there are indications that even the 69-year-old Daley is beginning to take notice.

Last week the mayor finally got around to launching his "intensive" campaign, a nostalgic and almost anachronistic affair replete with political songs sung to the tune of When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose and McNamara's Band, tributes to Daley as "the world's greatest mayor of this century," and the appearance of a group of 29 pubescent girls, a sort of St.

Genevieve's Academy version of the Rockettes, known as "Daley's Darlin's."

On the campaign's opening day, Daley managed to keep three of his four speaking engagements. He skipped an appearance at an athletes-for-Daley dinner at Johnny Lattner's Restaurant in Marina City, but he showed up to deliver a staid 20-minute speech to an audience of 1,000 at St. Scholastica's school for girls on the North Side.

Unlike Lyndon Johnson, Daley has never derived much joy from pressing the flesh. When 250 people lined up after the meeting to shake his hand, he accommodated about a dozen. Then suddenly he stood erect, "darting his eyes at the long remaining line. Without a word, the mayor loped off the stage and out into the night, his first day of hard electioneering at an end.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.