"A Man Like Lindsay"

Both candidates were intelligent, articulate and gentlemanly to the end. And, regardless of party labels, their political views were almost indistinguishable--so much so that the perplexed voters of Manhattan's liberal, sophisticated 17th Congressional District could hardly make up their minds. When the votes were counted last week, Republican Theodore Roosevelt Kupferman won over Democrat Orin Lehman by only 995 votes, 1% of the 95,000 cast.

So close an election in such a stubbornly independent district could hardly be hailed as a trend setter for November. Republicans nonetheless could take cheer in the retention of Mayor John Vliet Lindsay's old seat at the nerve center of the nation's largest city. Lindsay's buoyant political stock was boosted still higher by the victory of a candidate who billed himself as "a man like Lindsay" and promised to continue in the cherished Lindsay tradition of "independence and constructive opposition."

By contrast, Senator Robert Kennedy's political coattails looked a little threadbare after the defeat of Lehman, whom he had personally selected and endorsed, in a district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-2. If the Democratic Senator and the Republican mayor are engaged in a long-range battle for political control of New York, Lindsay had clearly won the first skirmish.

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