Houston mayor to mend fences after bitter campaign

HOUSTON -- With the negative and often ferocious campaigning behind him, newly re-elected Mayor Lee Brown on Sunday asked the city to coalesce during his final two years in office.

"This is a city I love. I want to make sure I do everything I can to see it progress," Brown said. "I believe when we work together as one city, we have a very bright future."

Saturday's election results seesawed all evening until a late surge by Brown supporters. Brown had 165,865 votes, or 52 percent, to Orlando Sanchez's 155,164, or 48 percent.

Brown, the city's first black mayor, starts his third term in January. He cannot run again because of a term limits ordinance.

In his campaign, Brown attacked the Cuban-born Sanchez as being inexperienced, unreliable and a political extremist who shouldn't be trusted to lead the nation's fourth-largest city. He also called into question Sanchez's work record as a probation officer.

On his part, Sanchez criticized Brown for fire department staffing shortages, deteriorating streets and warned of an impending financial crisis, saying he could better set priorities and spend city money more wisely.

Brown's campaign tactics "threatened to tear the fabric of our community," Sanchez said.

"He has pitted nationality against nationality, ethnic group against ethnic group, racial group against racial group. That doesn't serve our community," said Sanchez, who was vying to become Houston's first Hispanic mayor.

But he also stuck a conciliatory note after conceding defeat: "Tomorrow we all wake up, we're all Houstonians, we're working together."

City elections in Texas are officially nonpartisan but Sanchez got help from the entire Bush family and Republican New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Sanchez was the first to run under the GOP banner.

Brown, 64, a former drug czar in President Clinton's administration, rallied inner-city Democratic congressional members and had Clinton record a telephone message on his behalf.

Former Mayor Bob Lanier, who served three terms before Brown, decried the involvement of both national political parties and said Sunday he hopes it's not a trend.

"I think the effort to convert this into a referendum on national political parties was a mistake," said Lanier.

Richard Murray, professor of political science at the University of Houston, said that while the 44-year-old Sanchez might be well-positioned for future political forays, Republicans in Houston suffered.

"Close does not count and this was a loss for the GOP heading into the 2002 midterms," said Murray.