The Nation: Alioto Announces

San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto announced last week that he will seek the Democratic nomination for Governor of California next year, and what he is using to recommend himself to the voters is, of all things, his connection with Watergate principals. When charges linking Alioto with the Mafia were published four years ago, they were followed with a set of allegations concerning fee-splitting in Washington State. Alioto successfully defended himself against both sets of charges in court, and he never misses an opportunity to voice his contention that the men behind the fee-splitting charge were none other than John Mitchell, John Ehrlichman and Egil (“Bud”) Krogh. He thus lays claim to being the first victim of the “unprincipled political saboteurs of Watergate,” and a man who beat them. Alioto is well-financed and has a progressive record as mayor; the Watergate ploy seems designed in part to boost his standing with Democratic voters. In recent preferential polls, Alioto placed second (with 22%) to California Secretary of State Edmund G. Brown Jr. (who garnered 42%). Though Brown has not yet announced, his popular father served two terms as Governor—and that connection California Democrats seem to find easy enough to remember without Brown’s mentioning it at all.