losing to the Democrats. We've got to get our own people in there and make sure the work is done." It was a triumph of organization, and it delivered the votes on election day. Whether it can serve as the organizational framework during the next four years for a Mayor who has such a narrow political base in the city is one of the big question marks of Lindsay's future.

From June to early September, Lindsay spent his time touring the city opening these storefronts. On a typical day, he left his headquarters in the Roosevelt Hotel on schedule at 10:30 a. m. The tour stayed almost precisely on time throughout the day. By the sixth stop in mid-afternoon, it had fallen five minutes behind, which caused the staff much concern. A shortwave radio kept Lindsay's car in continuous contact with the Roosevelt and his scheduled stops.

As the car drove through Queens, he talked about that borough, a thick slab of Long Island lying between older, apartmenthouse-lined Booklyn to the west and the bed-room towns of Long Island proper to the east. Queens, the home of the recent World's Fair and La Guardia and Kennedy Airports, has swelled in the post-World War II boom into a jumble of one-and twostorey houses, garden apartments, and sizable apartment-house developments almost uniformly

middle-class. It is the only borough in which the two parties compete on equal terms. "You run into everything in Queens," Lindsay said. "Within ten minutes there, you can be-as I have been -heckled both by CORE and by PAT."*

sometimes adding, "I hope we bring you some business". Then into his local pitch : "I know something about your neighbourhood. I know you have a growing crime problem. You are worried about the lack of street lights at some corners and have had some accidents. You have a protection problem". Then on to the need for more lights, more police, or a mention of potholes in the street or a juninor high school that overcrowded. And then the finale: “Friends fellow New Yorkers, we have the possibility of creating something new and exciting and hopeful for New York. If you give me your trust, give me your confidence together we can make New York the great Empire City again."

was

There was enthusiasm for Lindsay at the outset and enthusiasm for him at the end. He, his staff, and his volunteers never expected to lose but were never quite confident of winning. They took the underdog position and stayed with it, straining every nerve and muscle all the way.

An able research staff headed by the candidate's brother George produced position papers on a wide range of problems from narcotics to housing to transportation to recreation. Howeve, Lindsay never made any single issue the dominant theme in the campaign. Many suspected this would be a weakness.

Stevensonian liberal Democrats complained that his campaign was too much image and too little issues. But, at the end, it was clear that his real theme was not an issue but a promise-the hope of change. Like John F. Kennedy in 1960 (whom Lindsay did not hesitate to paraphrase: "Let's get this city moving again" and "As a great American who was killed while serving his government said, 'Ask not what your government can do for you, but what you can Lindsay offered not a new programme or a do for your government and your city' "). new set of answers to the old urban questions but a new perspective and a new source of energy. A stalemated, weary, cynical city decided on November 2 to give the fresh-faced new boy a chance.

When a party holds a three-to-one majority in voter registration, the opposition

cannot win an election; the incumbents have to co-operate by losing it. The hidden half of the 1965 story in New York is how the Democrats lost the city they had ruled for twenty years.

There was no smooth Democratic succes

sion to the mayoralty because only Wagner had the political skills and the requisite assets to hold his coalition together name, family background, personal record, and connections with the trade unions, Liberal party, the machines, and the Reformers. A bruising primary battle for the nomination was inevitable.

the

troller-Abraham Beame. So did former Congressman Charles Buckley's old-line Bronx organization and Congressman Adam Clayton Powell's Harlem machine. This three-way alliance had the block captains and the political muscle to win a primary, but the generally unsavoury reputation of these kingmakers was to prove a deadweight in the race of City Hall.

This same triumvirate had provided the power base which easily won for Robert Kennedy the Democratic Senatorial nomination in 1964. In the mayoralty contest Kennedy seems to have been crafty in small ways, timid in the large. After Wagner withdrew he tentatively approached New York County District Attorney Frank Hogan and labour mediator Theodore Kheel as possible mayoral candidates. When each said he would run only if he could get the nomination unop

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posed, Kennedy dropped back. Although Beame was clearly not of leadership calibre. Kennedy refused to join Wagner in supporting Screvane and would not enter a candidate of his own. Instead he placed a man on the ticket of each of the top contenders..

"That way, whichever ticket wins, I'll have a man in City Hall to look out for my interests," Kennedy is said to have explained privately.

Beame's surprising minority victory in the primary election left the Democratic party's cause in the hands of a bossy, fussy, conservative accountant. With a bookkeeper's approach to government, he had no social vision to offer the city no, inspiration to lift its morale. He could only promise to administer the status quo in an economical manner. As with Nixon in 1960, where there is no vision, the people may not perish but the candidate surely does.

The unexpected public-relations success of William F. Buckley's mayoral candidacy on the Conservative party ticket severely exposed the flanks of both candidates, but he made Beame look worse. The editor of the National Review at first seemed to be running as a lark. However, the three-week newspaper strike in September gave added importance to television, on which Buckley was a polished performer. Since he had no ex

Though New York City Hall is often called a graveyard for those with political ambitions, the office of mayor is still a command post of enormous power and influence.

pectation of winning, he could skip the artifices of campaigning (praising ethnic groups, eating ethnic foods, deploring slums and crime without offering a programme to solve them, proposing costly programmes without suggesting a tax plan to pay for them). His high-Tory style was perfect for pricking the solemnities of both candi. dates. Lindsay, his private amiability aside, is deadly serious about his ambitions and his public convictions. He was no match for Buckley in wit, but once he schooled himself to hold his temper under the needling, he

was able to make broad, blunt counterattacks. He also exploited Buckley's reactionary proposals dealing with welfare recipients, drug addicts, and other unfortunates (most of the Negro), by playing to Jewish voters for sympathy since Jews are highly sensitized to any political theme of the Radical Right that they believe has racist undertones. All the while, the candidate of the Democratic party, Abraham Beame, was almost mute in response to Buckley's neo-McCerthyism.

At the end, he had two forlorn hopes. One was that Democratic party loyalty would carry him through. The other that Buckley's candidacy would hurt Lindsay more than himself.

Neither hope was fulfilled. Even among the ethnic groups traditionally most loyal to the Democrats-the Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and Jews-Lindsay made sharp gains. At the same time, Buckley'sappeal drew as many votes from socially conservative Democrats (policemen, firemen, small homeowners, etc.) as from Republicans.

Lindsay's election was a severe defeat for Kennedy. Although Kennedy professes privately to believe that the Democratic loss did not damage him personally and many observers see him in a position to "pick up the pieces," the fact remains that Wagner's retirement made the young Senator the dominant figure in the party, the first fruits of his leadership was the hapless Beame candidacy.

when

Despite all the easy talk about City Hall being a graveyard for those with higher political ambitions, the office of Mayor of New York is still a command post of enormous power and influence. For the Democrats to lose this command post during the first year that Kennedy became active as one of the party's movers and shakers does not speak well for his political acumen. Because he governs the city that is the nation's communications headquarters, any Mayor New York has opportunities for publicity and for shaping public opinion surpassed only by those of the President. Lindsay is exactly the kind of alert, imaginative, telegenic politician who can be expected to exploit these opportunities to the limit. He is a

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