Letter from a Whig
Will, George F.
4 The A l t e r n a t i v e November, 1971 Johh Lindsay's Journey Into the Night George F. WASHINGTON - - John Lindsay is bright, handsome, young, ambitious, moving fast and going nowhere....
...But he might do the Republicans a lot of good...
...What is significant is that Lindsay's arrival occasioned about as much jubilation among Democrats as his ~leparture occasioned lamentation among Republicans...
...Once rescued he could devote his energies to praying that the people of New York will forget - - or at least forgive - - his tenure as Mayor...
...Judging by 1968, Democratic Presidential candidates tend to run their campaigns on the same assumption that Democratic Presidents run the country...
...Oleg Gazenko...
...In 1968 campaigning Democrats distributed telephone and airline credit cards like gum drops...
...Another recent example of this maneuver is Senator Harris' campaign for the Presidency...
...Given Lindsay's record, it is easy to understand why Republicans kept a stiff upper lip when he bailed out...
...Wilson is a solid, conservative Republican, a proven votegetter, and a favorite of the Party regulars...
...That is true and explains nothing...
...Those Lindsay advisors who represent themselves as "realists" want their thoroughbred to pass up the 1972 Presidential sweepstakes and, instead, run for Governor of New York in 1974...
...I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I...
...Remember that in 1968 the combined Nixon and Wallace votes -- the antiliberal vote - - amounted to only fiftyseven percent of the vote nationwide...
...As the renowned black housewife, Marie Bowers, of Atlanta stated in the Times article: "He's got to win it...
...If there is any doubt about the bleak future confronting Lindsay, consider the ease with which the leading Democrats managed to contain their enthusiasm for his conversion...
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...The people who know him best residents of his City -- ime mm teast...
...In so doing they have lost their right to one substantial pleasta-e - - voting against Lindsay...
...So Lindsay, campaigning as an incumbent in the most liberal city in the Nation, managed to drive the liberal share of the vote below the national liberal vote attracted by that distinctly non-heroic flower of liberalism, Hubert Humphrey...
...But by then Harris will have a graceful exit from politics and Congressman Edmondson will have clear sailing...
...We can expect Lindsay's career to involve a similar scenario...
...and they"settled" their debts at twenty cents on the dollar...
...Still, Lindsay's current maneuvering has a rough logic...
...Rockefeller may be headed for a position in the Cabinet...
...Harris has become increasingly intoxicated with liberalism...
...Both parties accommodate a respectable and respected minority of office holders whose philosophic disagreements with .their majority are every bit as pronounced as Lindsay's disagreements with Republicans...
...Edmondson would trounce Harris in the primary...
...They all understand that "it would be a fearful confession of Party weakness for the Democrats to award their most coveted prize to a Republican re-tread...
...And, in one small step for the USSR, a flight of Soviet turtles returned from space, on 21 September, "thinner, but more active," according to Dr...
...The Alternative would be a fine magazine if you'd cut the cursing and name-calling...
...Senator Jackson warned that Egypt was preparing an attack on IsraeLi positions...
...At the UN the United States began its drive to seat Communist China and retain Nationalist China...
...The British discovered that they had 105 too many Russian diplomats on their famous island and asked them to pull down their antennae and leave...
...A McGovern aid was commendably candid: "'John Lindsay is an idea whose time has come - - and gone...
...That would open up the Secretary of State position - - one of two Cabinet jobs which Rockefeller might want...
...and he has poised himself for a plunge into Presidential politics just at the moment when such a plunge will generate - - nay, earn - - the lasting enmity (continued on page 27) The A l t e r n a t i v e November, 1971 27 CONTINUING CRISIS (continued from page 25) the American presidential candidate...
...If Lindsay is prudent he will stay out of the Presidential contest, thereby saving his new Party a lot of money and avoiding the charge that he sabotaged the existing leftwing candidacies (McGovern especially...
...If he wants to win elective office again, he cannot avoid returning to the scene of the crime...
...Approximately 600,000 taxpayers have fled to suburbia...
...He has been around, and compiled a record...
...But the Lindsay switch suggests one possible way...
...Governor...
...That is about the only pleasure remaining to New York City residents, and they grab it with gusto...
...The other job - - Secretary of Defense - - will be available if Nixon wins in 1972...
...The Lindsay track record, in office and as a vote seeker, is well known...
...This year, with a traveling ten-ring primary circus to finance, the real Democrats do not want an interloper reaching for his share of the liberal capital...
...Otherwise, its over for the blacks and minorities...
...It is easy to keep your composure when the local crank gets cranky with you...
...Thus a run for the nomination will make his new Party colleagues mad at him...
...His Oklahoma constituency is especially abstemious regarding liberalism...
...That assumption is false, as practical Democrats (Party Chairman Larry O'Brian, for one) understand...
...And he actually seems to believe that the tough, ambitious leaders of his new party are lucky to get him...
...M...
...Will Running in 1969 as the liberal candidate in the Nation's most liberal city, Lindsay managed to pull forty-two percent of the electorate away from liberalism...
...LETTER FROM A WHIG (continued from page 4) of the established figures of the Democratic Party...
...eEayptian surface-to-air missiles downed an Israeli jet over Israeli-held Sinai...
...D I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Consider The Alternative "The Alternative is a welcome addition to the ranks of American opinion journalism...
...If Lindsay does run for Governor in 1974, the chances are excellent that he will be tl~ashed by Malcolm Wilson, who is currently Nelson Rockefeller's Lt...
...Lindsay is a big boy...
...he has fled his Party...
...Secretary Laird already has announced that he intends to resign in 1973...
...The prudent course would be to work for a Democratic victory that might move him from Gracie Mansion to a Cabinet post...
...So a veteran Oklahoma Congressman, Ed Edmondson, announced that he would challenge Harris in the Democratic primary...
...Here comes another drain on our campaign funds...
...for a one-year subscription (nine issues) to The Alternative The Alternative is an insipid journal of polarizing iconoclasm whose slyle is intellectual, argumentative and satiric or so they say...
...The most implausible explanation is the one he gives...
...Moreover, by 1974 he may be the incumbent Governor...
...In Cranglio, Italy some two hundred chickens suffocated when they crowded into a corner of their domicile while seeking respite from the noise of a nearby rock festival...
...Then, and only then, can he realistically hope to get back into elective politics...
...Name Address City, State & Zip Institution...
...If there is anything about which the gaggle of Detaacratic candidates are agreed, it is this: one of them should get the nomination...
...The reaction was: "Lord protect us...
...Two things were clear...
...But even using these traditional methods of liberal finance, people run out of money...
...Louisville Courier Journal "1 predict for The Alternative a leading role in philosophical and political battles to come...
...There is probably no way that a reasonably conservative Presidential candidate such as Nixon can carry New York state...
...That is the conclusion suggested by three facts...
...The British also discovered that the average age of a female nudist is thirty-five...
...The welfare rolls have grown by 500,000...
...This autumn John Mitchell will resign as Attorney General and take charge of the Nixon campaign...
...he has jeopardized his ability to win a statewide election...
...Still, it is like advising Floyd Patterson to fight Frazier rather than All...
...Rather, it will he because the Democrats nominated Lindsay for Vice President...
...So before this calamity could result, Harris - - to no one's surprise - - began to hear voices from the ether telling him that he should be President.Some money men ginned up a campaign fund sufficient to get Harris through a few primaries, after which, one can safely predict, the voices from the ether will fall silent...
...That assumption is that the supply of money is infinitely elastic...
...Meanwhile he cannot do the Democrats much good...
...the result is the curious phenomenon of advancement dictated by failure...
...He thinks that if he disavows the party of his past he can separate himself from that record...
...Lindsay switched for reasons of prudence...
...But chances are that Lindsay peaked a little early - - in 1965...
...He says that his philos: ophy of Government is more congruent with the philosophy dominant in the Democratic Party than that dominant in the Republican Party...
...s~h t. Ag.ew "...stands almost alone among a welter of New Left, radical and revolutionary publications...
...But a divisive primary might open the way to a Republican victory in the general election...
...11, Box 360, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, Continental U.S...
...Since then he has managed to receive - - nay, earn - - the enmity of his old city...
...It is possible that Secretary of State William Rogers may move over to the Justice Department, where he served as Eisenhower's Attorney General...
...WHIken F. guckley, Jr...
...What this means is that between Lindsay and Destiny stands a fine politician (Wilson) who can be expected to enjoy the cooperation of another fine politician (Rockefeller) who detests Lindsay...
...It deals with national issues and personalities and offers insightful, original and sometimes offbeat reviews of current books...
...A Reader Enclosed is...
...Upstate will vote for Nixon, the City will vote against Lindsay, and a good time will be had by all...
...9 The famed Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies cited a fifteen per cent decline in America's infant population during the 1960's and naturalists doubted claims that Condors are nesting in Baja, California...
...The politicians upon whose favor he depends - - leaders of the Democratic Party - - have absolutely no use for him...
...A larger constituency implies a higher office...
...Since 1965 the city payroll has grown by 90,000...
...So Harris will clutter up the early primaries in order to gracefully escape a dismal showdown with his constituency...
...If Nixon carries New York it will not he by putting Nelson Rockefeller in Spiro's spot...
...The whole future of America seems tossed about on dark seas...
...Under Lindsay taxes have increased almost as fast as pollution, and the City's booming industries have been pornography and prostitution...
...This advice may be tinged with realism, at least as regards Lindsay's Presidential hopes...
...Stuton Evans "...one o f the most amusing and outrageous and interesting student journals in America...
...He recognizes that he cannot rise on the basis of that record...
...His chances are deemed limited, but his influence amongst minorities is strong for his wife is half Commanche...
...Why did he switch...
...Lindsay is acting on a familiar political rule: When your performance in office has ruined your standing with your constituency, seek a larger constituency...
...Rockefeller's ability, philosophy and appetites qualify him as a replacement...
...A shaggy six and one-haLf poundmale Yorkienamed Cerhie, eleven and one-half years old, toothless and arthritic, was lost in Central Park Mall according to the New York Times which also reported that on 21 September Senator Fred Harris elegantly announced his candidacy for the Presidency poignantly longing for "no more bullshit...
...In Uidapur, India, a crowd waiting to sign up for the purchase of motor scooters stampeded, crushing ten Indians...
...For a one-year subscription just clip this unique order form and, with the appropriate amount of money (one dollar for students and faculty members, four dollars for others), mail to The Alternative - Circulation Department, c/o The Establishment, R.R...
Vol. 5 • November 1971 • No. 2
