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In winning the nomination, Koch carried four of the city's five boroughs, including Cuomo's home county of Queens. Among ethnic blocs, only white Catholics voted heavily for Cuomo, an Italian American. Jews went overwhelmingly for Koch, who also won a majority of the black and Hispanic districts. Cuomo vowed to fight on as the Liberal Party nominee, but supporters, including Carey, began to defect, taking campaign dollars with them. The G.O.P. candidate, State Senator Roy Goodman, has only a small base of support in a city where Democrats outnumber the Republicans 4 to 1.
Even when his chances seemed nil as he pursued the nomination, Koch displayed a remarkably cool self-assurance. "It has always been that way," says his older brother Harold. "Ed always had a very firm sense of who he was and what he could do."
At 52, Koch is typical of many New Yorkers reared in the urban equivalent of the log cabin. His parents were Polish Jewish immigrants who lived in The Bronx when the two boys and their kid sister Pat were small. After the father's modest fur business failed during the Depression, the family operated a cloakroom concession in a Newark catering hall.
Young Eddie climbed the familiar asimilation ladder to professional status: City College, time out for World War II military service as an infantry sergeant in Europe, New York University Law School, a moderately successful private practice. He first got into politics during the 1952 Stevenson campaign. Koch served as a street speaker then, and again four years later, developing a style that is more haimish—homey—than sophisticated or rousing. A Yiddish lilt flavors his speech, and a phrasemaker he isn't.
During the late '50s Koch joined the anti-Tammany reform movement in his new neighborhood, Greenwich Village. After two years on the city council, Koch was elected to Congress in 1968. In the House, Representative Koch has been a down-the-line liberal and—despite his pugnacious stance in the mayoral campaign—an excellent conciliator. Indeed, Koch was elected secretary of New York's 39-member House congressional delegation, consisting of several factions in both parties. Says a colleague: "He doesn't let ideology interfere with getting things done. He adjusts for windage."
One thing that blows Koch's cool is the charge by former supporters that he has deserted liberalism on law-and-order questions. "The illiberal liberals want to chop your head off if you support capital punishment," Koch declares. "It's immoral, they say. Why is it immoral? It's part of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. I resent those liberals who let conservatives preempt issues which are of concern to the people, like crime."
Koch reacts with relative serenity to ugly personal attacks. A bachelor and a defender of civil rights for homosexuals, he has frequently been the target of rumormongers. This summer anonymous stickers showed up on subway cars bearing the punchline: IS NEW YORK READY FOR A GAY MAYOR? Says Koch: "They've been doing that for 14 years. I'm inured to it by now." He is only slightly more irritated by the whispered canard that he is really an Episcopalian. "What a low blow," he chuckles. "But I don't mind so much because it's so ridiculous."