Fusion & Fightin'

During his campaign for the mayoralty of New York, Manhattan's Republican Congressman John V. Lindsay, 43, has made every effort to identify himself as a foursquare progressive, even to the extent of treating his own G.O.P. city organization like a cast-off girl friend. Last week the strategy paid off, at least in part. By nearly unanimous vote, the nominating conference of the city's left-of-Democratic Liberal Party endorsed Lindsay as its candidate in the November election.

Kosher Label. There was scattered opposition from the floor. Said Louis Nelson, a longtime leader of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union: "You're trying to put a kosher label on this Lindsay!" Though the Liberal Party supported retiring Democratic Mayor Robert Wagner, it has lost some ground recently, and its leaders know that by fusing with a triumphant Lindsay it could maintain its standing as the city's third political force.

For Lindsay, the marriage could be equally convenient. Though the Liberal Party has only 62,794 registered members in the city, it has polled more than 400,000 votes--a potentially decisive bloc in a close mayoralty race. Lindsay promptly chose as his running mate, for the post of City Council President, Dr. Timothy Costello, 49, the Liberal Party's state chairman and a professor of psychology and management at New York University's graduate business school.

Conservative Republicans continued to be concerned at Lindsay's fling with the left. Their misgivings could hardly be eased by his reaction to a bombshell tossed last week by New York's Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Rocky vetoed a bill that would have empowered a 17-member corporation to handle the $16 million in anti-poverty funds that the Federal Government is offering the city. He said the new agency would be a "supergovernmental corporation" that could "supersede all state laws which are inconsistent with its provisions." Many Republicans praised the Governor, but Lindsay, according to an aide, was prepared to take a public stand against the veto.

New Entry. As for the Democrats, they still seemed bent on tearing themselves apart. Last week their big-name hope, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chairman Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., announced in Washington that he would not enter the New York mayoralty campaign, obviously because he had no desire to face a party primary fight. Of the other Democratic possibilities, none gave any sign of withdrawing. In fact, the race for the Democrats' September primary logged a fifth entry--City Comptroller Abraham Beame, 59. Declared the 5-ft. 2-in. Beame of the 6-ft. 3-in. Lind say: "I do not see eye to eye with him either physically or ideologically."

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