Chicagoan Bows Out, Backs Sawyer Over Daley

Mayor Eugene Sawyer, claiming that he is in a virtual “dead heat” with State Atty. Richard M. Daley as the Democratic mayoral primary approaches, won the endorsement Wednesday of Alderman Lawrence Bloom, who dropped out of the race.

Bloom’s departure leaves only Sawyer and Daley in the Democratic primary, which will be held Feb. 28. Daley is the son of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, who dominated city politics for 21 years until his death in 1976.

Bloom, who has charged that the Sawyer and Daley candidacies threatened to increase racial polarization, praised Sawyer Wednesday for having a “vision to unite this city.”

Cites Financing Problems

“I will be campaigning for Mayor Sawyer,” said Bloom, who added that he has watched Sawyer “grow in stature” during the campaign. He said he was dropping out because his under-financed campaign could not compete with the television commercials of his opponents.

Sawyer, who is black, was appointed mayor by the City Council in November, 1987, after the sudden death of Mayor Harold Washington. The former alderman badly trailed Daley in the polls at the start of the campaign, but since January--when popular black alderman Tim Evans dropped out to run as an independent--he has been endorsed by most of the city’s black political leaders.

Bloom, who like Daley is white, claimed support in both the black and white communities. Daley aides Wednesday discounted Bloom’s endorsement of Sawyer, saying half of his supporters likely will gravitate to Daley.

Sawyer said, however, that Bloom’s endorsement may sway the large number of undecided voters.

A recent poll commissioned by the Sawyer campaign and released this week showed Daley leading with 37%, followed by Sawyer with 33% and Bloom with 20%.

Another development that may potentially boost Sawyer’s candidacy was the announcement Wednesday that a group of Republican supporters are promoting the write-in candidacy of former alderman Edward R. Vrdolyak.

Vrdolyak, who led a white faction of the City Council that opposed Washington and who blocked most of the late mayor’s programs during his first term, has until Feb. 24 to officially enter the race as a write-in candidate.

If the articulate and controversial Vrdolyak enters the race it could dramatically change the tone of the campaign, which so far has been surprisingly low-key and free of the bile and racial tension that have marked recent city elections.

Voters can select either a Republican or a Democratic candidate in the primary. One scenario has Vrdolyak siphoning some of Daley’s mostly white support, thus weakening him and boosting Sawyer’s campaign. Then, if Vrdolyak wins the Republican primary, he would be the only white candidate in a three-way general election with Sawyer and Evans in April.

His supporters Wednesday denied that this was their intention.

“There are no gimmicks, no fast shuffle cards, no parlor tricks,” said John Ruel, a leader of the campaign to draft Vrdolyak. “We are not concerned with the Democratic primary. We’re more concerned with the Republican primary. What the other candidates do in the other party, that’s their business.”