(39 of 41)
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Matthew J. Troy Jr., 44. An energetic New York City councilman, Troy is also leader of the state's second largest Democratic county organization. His election to the Queens County post in 1971 elicited congratulatory phone calls from a gaggle of presidential hopefuls. Although he opposes busing and led a pro-Viet Nam parade in 1965, the unpredictable Troy endorsed George McGovern In 1972—probably just to stymie the ambitions of his bete noire, John Lindsay. A Fordham-educated lawyer who has proved expert at traditional back-room gambits, he is the son of a retired local judge who was, he says, "very independent and a pain to everybody —so I guess we're alike."
188
Wes Carl Uhlman, 39, won election to Washington's state house of representatives while he was still in law school, served four terms before moving on to the state senate, and in 1969 became Seattle's mayor. An affable, attractive, moderately mod Democrat, he has begun refurbishing Seattle's waterfront Skid Row, started a free downtown bus system that has rejuvenated the area, and helped lead the city back from the economic doldrums of 1970. "I don't want to grow old in this job," Uhlman confesses, and with his appeal to voters and his ambition to win high state office, he probably will not.
189
Michael Walsh, 32. In 1971, after just two years in his adopted city of San Diego, the Binghamton, N.Y.-born Walsh formed a chapter of Common Cause, the public-action lobby. Today he is California state chairman (60,000 members) and serves on the national governing board. A Yale law graduate, Walsh wants to clean up the U.S. political system. This June he made an impressive start, leading the successful fight for passage of California's Proposition 9, a tough political-reform act restricting campaign spending and lobbyists' activities and requiring strict reporting of contributions.
190
Barbara Walters, 43. "I didn't have a blazing talent, marvelous beauty or great ease," admits the ubiquitous television broadcaster. "I got where I am by hard work and perseverance." Co-host since April of the NBC Today show, whose daily audience is estimated at 10 million, she also conducts her own daily half-hour show, Not for Women Only, which has broken new ground for TV by exploring such controversial topics as male sexual dysfunction and police-community relations, and has also probed into the changing social and economic roles of women. Boston-born, Walters graduated from Sarah Lawrence in 1951. From a series of secretarial and writing jobs she went to Today as a writer in 1961, was made an on-camera panel member three years later. Using her talent as a provocative, well-informed interviewer, she has become TV's first lady of talk.
191
Lowell P. Welcker Jr., 43, "the bull in the Watergate shop," was a politically inconspicuous Republican Senator from Connecticut until he gained renown as a sharp questioner and independent investigator in the Ervin committee hearings. Moderately wealthy and Yale-educated, Weicker was elected to Congress in 1968 as an antiwar conservative, two years later squeaked into the Senate when state Democrats split their vote. Recent polls show that by combining a pro-Administration voting