More Polyphyletic Than Profound

The World Series was over. The World's Fair had shut down. With the reappearance of strikebound newspapers, New Yorkers became interested again in their unceasingly intriguing city. In the last weeks before the Nov. 2 city election, they even started caring about their mayoral campaign. As beer drinkers on Third Avenue all agreed, it was a hard one to figure. In more fashionable circles, the word for the contest was "polyphyletic," or multi-ancestral--and it was still hard to figure.

New York City's diverse and massive ethnic groups give politicians nightmares and pollsters the palsy. City census figures show 15% of New Yorkers are Negro, 8% Puerto Rican, 11% Italian, 4% Irish. There are an estimated 1,800,000 Jews, 3,400,000 Roman Catholics, and 1,700,000 Protestants. And there are 3 1/2 times as many registered Democrats as Republicans. Thus, the rare Republican candidate who wins the mayoralty (the last was Fiorello La Guardia in 1941) must straddle a multitude of attitudes. He must seem liberal enough to win over people who normally vote Democratic, correct enough to hold the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) minority, yet independent enough to appeal to reform Democrats.

Manhattan Maverick. Oddly enough, the first Republican in decades with enough polyphyletic appeal to stand even a chance of winning is a WASP. John Vliet Lindsay, 43, is a towering (6 ft. 3 in.), Yale-educated Congressman from the city's well-heeled 17th District, who charged into the race five months ago as an authentic Manhattan maverick. He got the G.O.P. nomination and that of New York's labor-oriented Liberal Party, and disassociated himself from all the big-league Republicans--Dick Nixon, Nelson Rocke feller, Dwight Eisenhower--who might have campaigned for him in New York. As his running mates, Lindsay picked an Irish Catholic, University Professor Timothy W. Costello who is chairman of the Liberal Party, for city council president and for comptroller, Milton Mollen, a Brooklyn Jew who had been with the Democratic administration of retiring Mayor Robert Wagner.

Stock Gag. Lindsay's major opponent, Democrat Abraham David Beame, 59, is a diminutive (5 ft. 2 in.), Jewish bookkeeper and longtime machine politician who became comptroller under Wagner. Bland and cliche-inclined, Beame droned on and on about "sound fiscal policy," no matter how glassy-eyed his audiences became. He had one indefatigable campaign gag: "I don't see eye to eye with Lindsay," he chuckles, "physically, philosophically or politically." Beame's candidate for city council president is Irish Catholic Frank O'Connor, 56, able district attorney in Queens, who is considered a hot possibility for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1966. For comptroller, Beame picked an Italian named Mario Procaccino.

Fun Candidate. No one takes the third candidate very seriously as a candidate--except that he is causing trouble for both of the other candidates. William F. Buckley Jr., 39, is a witty, elegant, conservative Republican who inherited a fortune (oil) and went on after God and Man at Yale to publish National Review magazine. As the candidate for the all-but-invisible Conservative Party (registration, 8,700), he admits he entered the race "half in fun." And Buckley can be funny. He calls Lindsay a man who "gets up in the morning and begins immediately to wonder how he can manage to say absolutely nothing for the rest of the day." As for Beame: "He doesn't pretend to be anything but what he is--a very ordinary politician." Buckley's campaign is aimed mainly at furthering the conservative cause at the expense of the liberal element, as represented by Lindsay. If he wins even 340,000 votes, Buckley's supporters figure, his showing will significantly bolster the G.O.P.'s conservative wing nationwide.

The candidates, for the most part, are studiously refraining from profound debate. Though Beame and Lindsay both issued "position papers" covering such critical areas as traffic, crime, schools, mass transit and finances, their positions have differed only slightly. Buckley argued that the city needs less government, not more. Beame's issue is simple partisanship: "I'm a Democrat and he's a Republican." Lindsay retaliates by calling Beame the "candidate of the bosses." That, too, has a ring of truth, for Abe Beame has not rejected any aid that seemed in any way useful.

Last week he turned up with a resounding endorsement from Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, the Harlem demagogue, who proclaimed: "It's time we proved we can elect a Jew as mayor of New York City. If I don't get these Southerners, these Jews, these Catholics into office, how can I ever expect to be President of the U.S.?" Beame got Bob Wagner's predictable, if cool, endorsement last week--even though the two exchanged bitter comments in the Democratic primary battle.

Religious Ire. Of all the nonissues under discussion, religion was about the most heated. Catholic Buckley attacked Lindsay as a "white Protestant" who put Costello and Mollen on his ticket to "get the maximum political mileage out of various personal categories like religion and nationality." Costello retorted that Buckley's views on the poor and on minority groups were contrary to papal encyclicals; therefore, said Costello, a vote for Buckley was in truth an anti-Catholic vote. Replied Buckley: "To imply that I am anti-Catholic is as convincing as to imply that Mr. Beame is anti-Semitic." When the city's Presbyterian leaders declared pointedly that "a change is needed"--without naming names--Abe Beame objected: "I would deeply resent any edict from my temple telling me how to exercise my American right to the secret ballot."

And who was winning? At week's end the New York Herald Tribune, using a previously untested street-corner polling system, showed Beame far ahead of Lindsay, 44.2% to 36.1%, with Bill Buckley at 12.6% . The New York Daily News poll, which has a relatively good record of accurate political prediction over 37 years, gave Lindsay 42.4%, Beame 41.1%, Buckley 16.5%.

Clearly, it was a wide-open, two-man race, though Buckley was more likely to hurt Lindsay than Beame. Possibly the best advice in the whole campaign came--characteristically late --from weary Bob Wagner: "If I had to whisper something in the ear of the new mayor next January, I might say, 'Get the hell out of this job!' "

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