New York's Upstate Revolt

...For the first time I saw what I must believe, on the evidence of my eyes and ears, to have been a genuine, unplanned, spontaneous demonstration...

...Monroe County (Rochester), which had originally declared for Samuels for governor and then obediently switched to O'Connor, now swung behind Samuels for lieutenant governor-perhaps to atone for its original betrayal...

...It no longer consists solely of the Albany and Buffalo machines plus a few lonely stalwarts who maintain continuity as a matter of eccentricity or ethnic tradition...

...David Bernstein, a veteran observer of state politics, is editor of Binghamton's Sun-Bulletin...

...New York's Democrats, except for the single four-year term of W. Averell Harriman, have been unable to elect a governor for over a generation...

...In recent years they have often succeeded, sometimes because they offered new faces to contrast with the old familiar Republicans, sometimes because they were talking the language of the 1960s, sometimes because they hinted that they had greater access to Federal funds than the Republicans...

...The fact is that every rebellious upstate delegate on the floor of that convention hall believed that Senator Kennedy, Frank O'Connor and the New York City bosses had agreed to stop Samuels...

...It has also concealed a successful upstate Democratic revolt that shifted political power and may in time enable the majority party to elect its candidates in consonance with its large registration advantage, currently more than 880,000...

...but the party bosses had lost the day...

...The first day of the convention, more or less followed the prearranged script...

...He's worked hard...

...As upstate has changed, so has the Democratic party upstate...

...In 1958 Carmine De Sapio had put over Frank Hogan as candidate for senator, while Governor Harriman and the upstaters leaned in other directions...

...It is equally possible for a Democrat to win upstate, as President Johnson showed two years ago, provided he has the right kind of opponent...

...The revolt has been interpreted as a reflection on Senator Kennedy...

...Someone suggested Joseph Julian, a bright young man at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, who had once run for Congress in Broome County...

...Samuels said he would not seek the nomination for lieutenant governor unless the "party leaders" asked him to do so, and he had not heard from them...

...The strains of Republican liberalism can be found all over the state...

...Burns went to the platform, surveyed the sea of rebellion on the convention floor, and quickly reported the situation to O'Connor...

...In 1950 Ed Flynn had put over an unknown Congressman named Walter Lynch as candidate for governor, while the delegates from upstate were still wondering who Lynch was...

...Moreover, the certainty that the Liberty party would nominate Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr...

...had further dampened the delegates' enthusiasm...

...Upstate communities that deliberately refused assistance from Washington during the New Deal and after now think they made a mistake...

...Queens passed in confusion, and the Bronx tried to pass, although a score of reform Democratic delegates insisted on telling the world that they were for Samuels...

...He advised Burns to come over at once and see for himself, and to bring O'Connor with him...

...It was a head-long, determined, unyielding-and successful-attempt to demonstrate to themselves and their party that New York State was bigger than New York City, that upstate was no longer a backward rural area to be patronized and ignored, that upstate was important and effective...

...But the Kennedy forces accepted him as inevitable, and the New York City leaders were obviously committed to him...

...He knows we can win...

...The upstaters were seething...

...SHIFTING POLITICAL POWER New York's Upstate Revolt By David Bernstein Buffalo This year's proliferation of candidates for governor of New York-which gives the state's politics some of the flavor of preGaullist France-has made the campaign more entertaining than anyone had expected...

...On a Wednesday in early September, the delegates gathered glumly for a drab, cut-and-dried convention...

...He's thought about the problems of the state...

...Last year, having accepted second place on the Democratic ticket in the New York City elections, O'Connor outran his party's candidate for mayor and became president of the City Council...

...Thus the choice, to head off Samuels, was Sedita for attorney general (on the assumption that he would probably be beaten by the Republican incumbent, anyway), and, for lieutenant governor, a New York City liberal Democrat with a well-known Jewish name...

...It received its final assurance of success when J. Raymond Jones, the New York County leader, jumped on the Samuels bandwagon-obviously pleased with the chance to get back at Senator Kennedy for his defeat in a surrogate primary only a few weeks earlier...

...Yet, even as the early sessions moved drearily according to plan, there was an inkling of the revolution that came a day later...

...The picture was always false, and never more so than now...

...But the upstaters persisted, on their own...

...Those who claimed to speak for Italo-Americans, however, wanted Mayor Frank Sedita of Buffalo on the ticket and it was hard to think of him as a candidate for lieutenant governor...

...It was not directed against any individual by name...

...The last-minute effort to drum up interest in the possible candidacy of former Mayor Wagner had fallen flat, as had similar efforts to arouse interest in the Democratic speaker of the Assembly, Anthony J. Travia...

...This year the party leaders, whether Buckley or Steingut or whoever, had put over O'Connor as candidate for governor, while upstaters were beginning to realize once again how little their own preferences mattered...

...They read newspapers that are often more enterprising than the dwindling number or New York City newspapers...

...Their children attend excellent public schools, on the whole, and a high proportion go on to college...

...As it turned out, though, Samuels had enough delegates upstate to force O'Connor to rely on the first of the big satrapies of New York City for his majority...

...They take their politics a bit more seriously than the average New York City inhabitant, who often cannot name his assemblyman or state senator-which may help explain why the State Legislature is still, as Lord Bryce called it in the last century, "confessedly among the worst...

...He had apparently been under the impression that Binghamton was a market town for New York State farmers when in fact it is an industrial complex that produces IBM computers, space and jet guidance devices, airplane and space capsule simulators, shoes, photographic film and cameras, and other products requiring considerable technological skill...

...It was not even a matter of devotion to Samuels...

...Whether O'Connor wins or loses next month, the Democratic party in New York State will never be quite the same again...

...The upstate vote was unanimous for Samuels...

...And, believing it, they had revolted and asserted their new confidence and power...

...Jack English, the Nassau County leader, returning from the Statler-Hilton, discovered his own delegates unsettled and aroused...

...Their votes, taken together, formed considerably less than a majority, but they were showing an independence not often encountered in the party's state conventions...

...I asked him why...

...I have witnessed several conventions, state and national, and have always been repelled by the synthetic demonstrations which are part of the tribal rite...

...Their support of Howard Samuels was not so much an attack on the party bosses, or leaders, or strategists...

...In the late summer, when Frank P. O'Connor officially announced that he was a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, he chartered a plane and flew to several upstate cities to issue a rash of statements in a single day...

...But the kind of men they favored-Sol Linowitz, the Xerox man in Rochester, for example-were unwilling to engage in a pre-convention battle...

...In desperation, he appealed to a delegate from Binghamton, Donald F. McManus, a lawyer and former Broome County Democratic chairman, who is a good friend of Burns...

...Even the magnificent countryside has been turned into an industry, generating jobs and profits in the vacation business...

...In his few months in office, his principal effort has been to prepare for his gubernatorial campaign this year...

...Assuming that the Westchester and Long Island suburbs, as bedrooms of the city, identify with the city's interests-which is a pretty big assumption-the division of population between the metropolis and the rest of the state would still be almost 50-50...

...Whether this was true or not, they believed it...

...Upstate district attorneys, including many Republicans, express personal admiration for him...

...Eugene Nickerson of Nassau County and Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr...

...It is possible, as Mayor Lindsay showed last year, for a Republican to win an election in New York City, if he has the right kind of allies outside the party...

...Upstate people are well educated and literate...

...The party leaders met, mostly in the hotel suite of John Burns, to pick a candidate for lieutenant governor...

...They can elect a U.S...

...Their assumed second choice, Nickerson, had fizzled badly...

...Upstaters have also revealed an increasing tendency toward independent voting...

...At the War Memorial Auditorium, while these hotel meetings were going on, the delegates had gathered for what was to be the final session, due to convene at three o'clock in the afternoon...

...O'Connor strategists had decided to put an end to the talk that he had been chosen by the bosses, notably Charles Buckley of the Bronx and Stanley Steingut of Brooklyn...

...Only Brooklyn, true to Stanley Steingut, stood against the tide...

...So the choice boiled down to O'Connor...

...O'Connor's ignorance is not exactly unusual...

...had long since dropped out of the contest for the gubernatorial nomination, leaving only O'Connor and Howard J. Samuels in contention...

...The communication from the upstate county leaders made a brief stir on the second day of the convention, Thursday morning...

...This wisp of upstate independence seemed little more than a passing annoyance by the end of the formal session on Wednesday evening...

...He quickly suggested that Nassau and Suffolk should fall in behind Samuels if the Samuels backers would support his choice for attorney general (an arrangement to which no one objected but which was not consummated...

...The revolt had gathered momentum in two and a half hours...

...As the moments passed, the upstate insurrection increased in intensity...

...Except for the Democratic state chairman, John J. Burns, former mayor of Binghamton, and Senator Kennedy, who has assiduously traveled around the upstate areas for the past two years, the party's leadership seems to have carefully studied the famed old New Yorker magazine map of the United States and found it accurate...

...The Republican label-which used to be as absolute an assurance of victory as a Democratic label in many parts of New York City-is no longer the guarantee of success on Election Day...

...Some upstate delegates visited the disconsolate Samuels in his hotel suite...

...Today the Rockefeller administration boasts about its skill in using Appalachia program money to help build the state's expanding network of highways...

...That was why Senator Kennedy scored Brownie points when he insisted that the Southern Tier was part of Appalachia, while Republican politicians were dismayed by any such idea...

...Nor were they especially bitter, either, against the man they had nominated for governor only the day before...

...Even where the Republican party still maintains power, it has changed radically in recent years...

...McManus put through a call to the hotel, asked the operator to interrupt the busy line to Burns's suite, and told Burns what was happening in the auditorium...

...Delegates and alternates, flaunting their badges of office proudly on their chests, began to wave the beat-up placards from the previous night's spurious Samuels demonstration...

...Burns' assistant at the hall had tried to reach the chairman at the hotel...

...No one has ever impugned O'Connor's integrity in politics...

...His nomination was withdrawn even before it was officially made...

...A good example of this was the dropping of George L. Ingalls of Binghamton as minority leader in the Assembly at the beginning of this year's legislative session in Albany...

...The post does not lend itself to glamor, or to positive achievement, and O'Connor has often appeared to be querulous and mischievous rather than creative and statesmanlike...

...But the events on the second day of the Democratic state convention at Buffalo last month may have taught the Democratic leaders the lesson they should have learned without the embarrassment they suffered...

...Onondaga County (Syracuse) came around, perhaps because its leader was eager to undercut John Burns, whose job as state chairman he had coveted...

...These were large contingents of delegates, and the insurrectionary fever swelled through the hall...

...Upstate New York is a rich agricultural area, but the farms have become big business...

...The theory was that O'Connor would attain his majority in the upstate assembly districts, proving that he was the candidate of all the Democrats...

...The upstate revolt had caught fire across town...

...They shouted and cheered and milled around...

...Senator Kennedy had already gone back to Washington in his plane, thinking everything had been arranged satisfactorily...

...The Republicans seem to have learned this lesson faster than the Democrats...

...They had no bitterness against Senator Kennedy...

...They only seem so...

...The population of the state as a whole is about 18 million, and of the five boroughs of New York City about 8 million...

...But he's too proud to tell O'Connor he's willing to accept the second place, and I hear O'Connor isn't asking...

...They felt that the best way to do so would be to reverse the normal order of the roll call, giving the upstate delegations the chance to be heard from first, and the convention agreed to this procedure...

...But they cannot elect a governor except by accident...

...They are exposed to the soporific but sophisticating influence of television...

...senator, if his name is Robert F. Kennedy...

...In sum, social, economic and demographic changes upstate have been profound-and along with them has come an equally profound political change...

...After that it was just a matter of formalities, dramatic though they were...

...Well, he's a good man...

...An aide hastily whispered in his ear and, somewhat embarrassed, he changed the subject...

...It does not matter...

...Samuels is our kind of man...

...Why, we have local candidates we're going to elect in Fulton County for the first time...

...He knows our problems...

...The principal reason for this, probably, is that the Democratic leaders-the bosses, if you choose to be unpleasant about it-have failed to study the state map or to read the census figures or to find out what is happening outside the five boroughs of New York City...

...They have been enlarged during the Rockefeller administration, which has quietly been purging the arch-conservatives within the party...

...In the ensuing weeks of the governorship campaign itself, the events of that afternoon seem a bit pale...

...It was 5:30 by now...

...It was quickly followed by a gallant concession from Samuels, a warm introduction of O'Connor by Senator Kennedy, and a standard acceptance speech, after which the delegates retreated to hotel rooms, restaurants and bars to gather strength for the tedious formalities of nominating the lesser candidates the next day...

...For this revolution represented the new forces that are arising in the state, affecting the destiny of a majority party which has lost so many elections because it lost touch with reality...

...By early morning, over 40 upstate delegates had agreed to sign a telegram to O'Connor, telling him they wanted Samuels on the ticket...

...As a state senator, early in his career, he followed a highly conservative line, which he now dismisses as reflecting an immaturity he has outgrown...

...O'Connor was not the first choice of the Kennedy strategists, presumably because he seemed a throwback to the traditional Democratic politician...

...In 1962 the Kennedy Administration had put over Robert Morgenthau as candidate for governor while most of the delegates, curiously enough, preferred the man who was actually nominated this year, Frank O'Connor...

...Imagine, Democrats with a chance of winning...

...As district attorney in Queens for many years, he was considered a man of great ability...

...Someone suggested Jack Weinstein, a distinguished Nassau County attorney who teaches law at Columbia, for attorney general (thereby ruling Samuels off the ticket) and Weinstein began writing his accepttance speech...

...Arriving at the Broome County airport, which serves Binghamton and its satellite communities, he was prepared to deliver himself of some gloomy thoughts on the condition of local agriculture...

...Burns, O'Connor and the other party leaders scurried across town...

...He's treated us as if we mattered...

...So they took their stand on Samuels...

...In counties and townships which have been Republican since the Civil War, Democrats are emerging who seriously aspire to win local elections...

...Some of Kennedy's close friends suggest that this was simply one of those mysteries of personal chemistry: the two men just didn't click...

...Kennedy sent word that he didn't relish Samuels, but would go along with any slate O'Connor wanted...

...New York County came in, 112 strong...

...And the entire area has become increasingly industrial...

...Samuels, who lives in the small upstate town of Canandaigua, not far from Rochester, had apparently made a poor personal impression on Senator Kennedy...

...The senator himself has tried to minimize this by denying that he had anything to do with the attempt to block the nomination of Howard Samuels...

...The upstaters, without any apparent plan or stimulation, decided to take a stand for Samuels for lieutenant governor...

...It was about this time that the script went awry...

...Orin Lehman, who had spent the eve of the convention at a secondrate movie in Buffalo, was summoned to the decision-making hotel suite in its second day and informed that he was to be the party's choice...

...THE DECISION-MAKERS at the Statler-Hilton apparently had little idea of what was going on...

...In a cafeteria late Wednesday night a delegate from Fulton County (Gloversville and Johnstown) said, "We have got to get Samuels to agree to go on the ticket...

...They made their point...

...It is no longer realistic to assume that the Republican majorities upstate will be huge, just as the Democratic majorities in New York City will be huge, and that in any state contest the problem merely consists of trying to have one majority outweigh the other...

...To the city Democratic bosses, the upstate half of the population seems to live in a peasant economy, largely Republican by tradition and inclination, with a few exotic communities ruled by corrupt but amiable Democratic machines (as in Albany and Buffalo), and some pleasant Irish Catholics serving as county chairmen who can be counted on to do what they are told when the deals have to be made...

...he was flown to Buffalo but the politicians decided he looked too young...

...He comes from upstate...

...O'Connor wanted no part of Samuels...

...They can carry every single county for Lyndon B. Johnson, if his opponent's name is Barry Goldwater...