POLITICS : Denver May Elect First Black Mayor : Personalities, not racial tensions, drive 7-way contest.

The city of Denver, controlled by the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-1920s, now is on the verge of electing its first black mayor.

In a campaign marked by contrasting personal styles, not racial tension, Norm Early, the city’s district attorney since 1983, is expected to top a field of seven candidates for mayor in today’s municipal election. He may even gain the majority of votes necessary to stay out of a June 18 runoff election.

If he does, he will become the first black mayor in this city of 467,000 whose black population numbers just 12%. He also would succeed a Latino, Federico Pena, who has held the office for eight years.

At a time when racial tension appears to be rising in many U.S. cities, Denver appears to be an anomaly: a city in which racial issues have played little part in local politics. Indeed, the key to success for both Pena and Early--if he wins--appears to be their emphasis on promoting economic growth for the city as a whole instead of focusing on the problems of minorities.

In Early’s case, taking that approach has been easier than for many black urban politicians because Denver’s black population is relatively well-off.

Denver’s black population did not begin to grow until World War II and did not know the Ku Klux Klan’s hate, which was directed at Catholics and Jews in the 1920s. The city’s blacks also are primarily middle-income, prompting one national black leader in the ‘80s to call Denver an “island of black affluence.”

Besides Early, 45, the only other viable candidates for mayor are City Auditor Wellington Webb, 50, also black, and lawyer Don Bain, 56. Bain lost the runoff election against Pena in 1987 by just 3,000 votes.

Pena was a favorite of Denver’s Latinos, who make up 23% of the city’s population, but he melded a coalition of minorities and middle-income and working-class whites.

His administration, which brought the city a new convention center and launched construction on a controversial new airport, did not always have smooth sailing, however. Almost immediately after his reelection in 1987, Pena had to withstand a recall campaign that underlined discontent among more conservative voters.

Pena hopes to hand over to the new mayor a completed tax-credit package that will bring a United Airlines maintenance facility--and 6,000 jobs--to the new airport. The deal faces consideration by the Colorado Legislature next month.

Denver residents hope the new mayor can put together a major downtown retail project, which would bring economic life to the 16th Street Mall, and find innovative ways to deal with the city’s gang problem. The city also may be awarded a major league baseball franchise in mid-June, which would mandate stadium construction.

The big questions are not whether Early will get the most votes, but if he will win more than 50%, and whether it will be Webb or Bain facing him in June if there is a runoff.

“The interesting part of this campaign is who will come in second and whether there will be a runoff between two black candidates,” said Marshall Kaplan, dean of the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver.

“I think it would be the first time that any major city would have two candidates who are black running against each other for mayor.”

Webb and his wife, Wilma, a popular state legislator, live in predominantly black northeast Denver, and he has been active in black politics for years.

Early lives in a more fashionable section of Denver, plays polo and has been described by an opponent as a “wine and cheese sort of guy.” But his campaign has been endorsed by most of the city’s black elected officials.

Early, outspending Bain 2 to 1 and Webb 3 to 1, has won a wide following with his ebullient manner and his tough-on-crime stance.

Bain is a conservative Republican in a city that is 2 to 1 Democrat and has not elected a GOP mayor in more than 30 years, although the office is nonpartisan.

The surprise so far has been Webb’s showing in the public opinion polls. With the least money of any of the three, Webb has steadily gained a following with a hit-the-streets, grass-roots effort. Promising not to go home until after the election, he has been pounding the pavement and spending nights at the homes of supporters since the latter part of April.

“Confounding the public opinion is that Webb, who has no money, has managed to move into a second-place position,” said longtime political analyst Floyd Ciruli. “ . . . It’s really extraordinary because he has no TV advertising.”