But all the talk was about jobs at more than 500 municipal welfare offices, many of them patronage positions.

It should not, however, include commitments to hand out patronage positions to Democrats who have been resisting coming on board.

About a dozen appointed patronage positions are at stake.

He sought other positions without success while continuing to fight for control of patronage positions in Pennsylvania.

"It has always been a patronage position," Mr. Little said.

Before being elected to office, Barnard had worked as a teacher and in clerical patronage positions in the territorial government.

At stake in the race for the $90,219-a-year job is control of the county's $1.3 billion budget, 21,000 jobs and hundreds of patronage positions.

He rose to social prominence, and served a term as the city's postmaster, a patronage position.

In 1853 received a political patronage position as the postmaster of Nashville.

He appointed substantial numbers of blacks to patronage positions in government beyond the janitorial jobs they usually received.