Nation: Lindsay: A Political Fantasy

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"It 'was not an easy decision," John Lindsay told a press conference in the late summer of 1970. "Some of my best friends are Republicans. But the nation's cities have troubles to which the Republican Party has not been sufficiently responsive. I have therefore decided to join the Democratic Party in order to carry the message of the cities more effectively."

THE scene is not that difficult to imagine. For all of his political life, Lindsay has been afflicted by the delusion that he is a Republican. But the label grows more threadbare by the month. In fact, Lindsay has been a man without a party ever since last spring's New York mayoral primaries, when the Republicans denied him their nomination. Lindsay, the urbanist out of St. Paul's, Yale and Manhattan's silk-stocking district, ran for re-election as an Independent and a Liberal Party candidate. Now he presides over a city hall aswarm with Democrats, Kennedyites and peaceniks.

In a time of notably unglamorous national politicians, Lindsay, a prime and ambitious 48, is, as one New Jersey Democrat called him, "a beautiful piece of political property." But whose property? Unless he wishes to end up in that political boneyard where former mayors of New York City traditionally molder, Lindsay must create an identity and plan that will liberate him from city hall and place him in the ranks of national leaders.

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Lindsay could remain a Republican, although for the moment his future in the G.O.P. looks rather forlorn. He and Nelson Rockefeller coexist with all the benign symbiosis of mongoose and cobra. Since Lindsay's own city G.O.P. organization would not back him last fall, he could hardly fare better with the state Republicans controlled by Rockefeller. If Lindsay cannot win the governorship or a place in the Senate—both seats are occupied by liberal Republicans —he has little hope of winning a future place on the Republican national ticket. Still, if he waits until 1974 to run for Governor, he might broaden his Republican constituency and succeed Rockefeller in Albany, a powerful base from which to campaign for the presidential nomination in 1976.

Alternatively, Lindsay might remain an independent, accumulating a fusion following of the young, the blacks and the liberal suburbanites increasingly turned off by both major parties. In 1972, with Nixon, George Wallace and someone like Hubert Humphrey or Edmund Muskie in the race, Lindsay might gamble on a fourth-party movement to try for the White House or at least establish a base for future attempts.

In some ways, the third course is most beguiling. A scenario for an apostate Lindsay might go like this:

Late this year he becomes a Democrat. The reaction is somewhat schizophrenic. Ted Kennedy issues a halfhearted welcoming statement, intending to support Lindsay for President in 1972, watch him lose to Nixon and then step forward himself in 1976. The Democratic National Chairman is delighted to have such a lustrous fund raiser join the ranks. Others are less pleased with the interloper, and they are not all Southern Democrats. Maine's Edmund Muskie rather archly welcomes Lindsay aboard, after passing the word to a press secretary to triple his own speaking engagements. Hubert Humphrey greets the news with a long and effusive speech in praise of party loyalty.