Nation: NEW YORK: THE REVOLT OF THE AVERAGE MAN

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Also, Lindsay has attracted thousands of young volunteer workers who are canvassing the city, Gene McCarthy-style, on Lindsay's behalf. And despite the charges and countercharges between the Lindsay and Procaccino camps over racism—Marchi calls both his adversaries "rhetorical muggers"—the tension that was so evident a few months ago may be decreasing. If it continues to ease, so will anti-Lindsay sentiment.

More Emotional

Procaccino's durability as a personality is questionable. Lindsay, for the most part, has shucked his own stiff pugnacity for the duration of the campaign at least. He is speaking quietly and candidly about his own record and the unfinished business at hand. He has also managed to put the more emotional Procaccino on the defensive in some respects. The comptroller has had to spend a good deal of time explaining why he preferred not to debate on television; last week he finally accepted the challenge. He has had to deny repeatedly that he is racist. He has had to defend his emotionalism—he wept when announcing his candidacy—and replies that Moses, Jesus, Lou Gehrig and Joe Namath all were emotional. His statements suffer from a poverty of ideas and often boil down to a vague assertion that Lindsay's good intentions have disturbed the peace and that what is really needed is a reversion to the status quo ante of the twelve Wagner years, but Robert Wagner himself has so far refused to endorse Procaccino. Even some of the most orthodox Democrats feel that he may lack the stature to be mayor of New York.

Lindsay is not offering a raft of new ideas either. He stands on the goals he has already set, acknowledges that the city still has vast problems that cannot be solved with its own resources, admits his mistakes and says that he has learned from them. Yet, quite apart from style, personality and particular issues, there is a fundamental difference among the candidates. Marchi thinks that the mayor's office has too much power, that authority should be spread more evenly among the branches of city government. Procaccino takes a traditional view that the mayor should be more of an umpire among competing interests than a principal actor. Lindsay, above all, is an unreconstructed activist. "When I took office," he said the other day, "I thought a mayor in this day and age had to conduct experiments and take risks. He was going to be the most unpopular man in town."

The prediction turned out to be all too accurate. That fact allows Mario Procaccino to say of his average voters: "They're with me now. It's up to the other two to try to take them away and I don't think they can do it." Lindsay does think he can do it, and his drive is strong. "This is where it's happening," he says. "This remains the biggest challenge in the U.S."