The New York Times - November 6, 1985
Robert Reinhold

That was the prevailing interpretation today among politicians after the 39-year-old Mayor's decisive victory over Louie Welch, the 66-year-old former five-term Mayor who was making a comeback attempt. Mrs. Whitmire won 200,788 or 58.9 percent of the votes; her opponent won 138,552 or 40.6 percent. Four other candidates shared the remaining votes.

Mr. Welch, in the final two weeks of the campaign, had stressed Mrs. Whitmire's backing of job rights for homosexuals and fear of AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, most of whose victims are homosexual.

"The preference of voters on the gay issue never was correlated to voter choice," said Robert M. Stein, a political scientist at Rice University who has monitored the changing attitudes of 500 voters polled periodically since May.

Anti-Homosexual Candidates

Still, the issue appeared to have affected two races for City Council. A slate of anti-homosexual candidates called the "Straight Slate" ran well, forcing into runoffs two incumbent councilmen who are allies of Mayor Whitmire and who had backed a failed ordinance on homosexual job rights last January. Anthony Hall and Judson Robinson, both at-large Councilmen, fell just short of the required 50 percent needed in multicandidate races. All other Council incumbents won.

"Despite the fact that the Straight Slate did not elect anybody, for a single issue group they showed some heft -they got folks out who usually don't vote," said Richard Murray, a political scientist at the University of Houston.

Mrs. Whitmire ran what even Mr. Welch's people conceded was a masterly campaign, stressing the positive and offering an optimistic vision for a city whose economy is ailing. That left Mr. Welch to focus on the city's warts. His call for a return to the city government of the 1960's apparently meant little to a generation of newcomers who have migrated here over the last two decades.

Blacks Support Mayor

Analysis of voting patterns show that Mr. Welch won strongly in white working-class areas and carried a modest majority of white voters over all. The two split the Mexican-American vote. But Mrs. Whitmire won about 95 percent of the black vote. In a city in which blacks cast nearly one-third of the votes, that submerged Mr. Welch's slim lead among other groups.

Mrs. Whitmire has gained support among blacks in her four years as mayor, winning praise for appointing a black man, Lee P. Brown, as police chief. Conversely, many blacks recall that the Welch mayorality, from 1964 to 1973, was marked by charges of police brutality against blacks.

According to Professor Murray's analysis of a poll conducted by KPRC-TV among persons who had just voted, only 15 percent of voters cited "morality" as the reason for their choice; 82 percent of them voted for Mr. Welch. Fifty-two percent said the key question was who would be a more competent Mayor, and that group went for Mrs. Whitmire by a margin of 76 to 24 percent. The poll surveyed 500 voters and its margin of sampling error was about 4 percentage points.

The campaign left the once-potent Gay Political Caucus on the defensive. Two years ago 18 candidates sought its endorsement; this year none did. The caucus refrained from making recommendations, fearing they would work against sympathetic candidates.

Mr. Welch entered the race after leading a successful effort by the Houston Chamber of Commerce, of which he was president, to repeal the homosexual job rights bill. But his candidacy suffered a severe blow two weeks ago when, unaware that his voice was being broadcast on television, he said one way to halt the spread of AIDS would be to "shoot the queers."

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