Plowing Into Politics
Listen in RealAudio
Email your weather question

Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. In big city politics, the seemingly simple task of snow removal has left many a mayor slipping and sliding. Today we hear from Jim Warren, the Washington bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune and he was an on the scene in three occasions where well known city leaders where nearly buried in their own campaigns. The first, in New York City in the winter of '68-'69:

"John Lindsey was the Liberal Republican mayor. And a bad snow storm and an outcry in the borough of Queens where snow removal was absolutely awful. And Lindsey was way too slow on the uptake and then compounded matters at least for symbolism purposes by going out there in his limo and the limo got caught out in the snow. They had to go out and get into a four-wheel drive, it was a total debacle..."

The second snow removal fiasco was in Chicago during the harsh winter of '78 and '79. Mayor Michael Bilendic did not apologize for his failure at snow removal, an advantage to his opponent and eventual winner, Jane Byrne:

"at the thrust of her commercials was 'listen, only the good lord can stop the snow and its not the fact that it snowed that's the problem here, but it was just the sort of competence in dealing with it and a certain dishonesty that came with that."

Then there was Marion Barry in Washington in 1996.

"Barry was sort of saved some of the same scorn that Lindsey and Bilandik received, it was that in a weird way, expectation levels here in Washington for citizens are so low."

Probably the best snow redistribution strategy came from Mayor Bernie Sanders in Burlington Vermont in the early 80's. He'd just grab a shovel, go outside and pitch in.

Funding for the Weather Notebook comes from Subaru the beauty of all wheel drive.