New York: 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 3½ 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.