Bensonhurst Sal
| ✂️ | |
| Era | The Seventies |
|---|---|
| Age | 70-76 |
| Home | Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, NY |
| Demographic | urban, Italian Catholic, retired tradesman |
| Lean | Swing voter |
| Race | white |
A retired barber in Brooklyn in his seventies, an Italian Catholic who arrived as a child and has voted for candidates of both parties. He is the cast's oldest swing voter, supporting New Deal programmes and holding conservative views on crime in his neighbourhood.
Who they stand for
Sal stands for the older white ethnic Catholics of the Northeast's cities. They were the Italians, Irish and Poles who had arrived before the 1924 immigration quota laws. They built the Democratic majorities of the Roosevelt years, but by 1969 many no longer felt bound to the party. Their pensions came from Social Security and Medicare, so they never became Republicans. Their neighbourhoods were changing, and crime in New York rose through the decade. In May 1970, construction workers in lower Manhattan attacked anti-war demonstrators in what became known as the hard-hat riot, an event that showed how conservative these voters' mood had become. Richard Nixon carried Italian-American districts easily in 1972. Jimmy Carter won many of them back in 1976. New York City's 1975 fiscal crisis, and Ford's initial refusal to bail the city out, left this bloc suspicious of both parties.
Inflation is Sal's particular grievance. A retiree on a fixed income lost purchasing power every year until Social Security payments were indexed to inflation in 1975. The shares of this vote in Rhode Island, Florida and Connecticut represent the same people, either still living in the Northeast in retirement or having moved south.
Playing to them
Sal responds well to policies that emphasise public order: visible policing, a hard line on drugs and street crime, and respect for the elderly. He is equally moved by the defence of Social Security and Medicare. A president who protects these programmes while also promising safe streets can keep his support for a full term. He does not forgive inflation, because it reduces the real value of his fixed income, or contempt for his neighbourhood and its people.
A president who wins his support through a law-and-order platform irritates Berkeley Bruce and Japantown June, who regard heavy policing as a threat to civil liberties. A president who wins him through defending entitlement programmes loses the support of Muncie Merle and Sun City Dot. Nonna Concetta lives on the same street as Sal and shares his views on the economy. She is easier for the party to keep, because she has never left it, while Sal periodically votes for the other party.
Where they live
The five states where Bensonhurst Sal makes up the largest share of the electorate in the seventies:
- New York
- Rhode Island
- Florida
- New Jersey
- Connecticut