Zohran Mamdani's great expectations
The big question about the politics of hope
On November 2, 1965, the 43-year-old Rep. John V. Lindsay eked out a victory in New York City’s mayoral election. After 12 years of Mayor Robert Wagner’s stolid stewardship, the telegenic liberal Republican promised to revitalize the city. The press was giddy.
“The politically incredible has come to pass,” The New York Times wrote in an editorial. “This city, weary of twenty long years of plodding one-party rule, has cast its vote for a better future. The people have made it plain that they want a change. They will get it in Lindsay.”
The six-foot-four-inch tall scion of a prosperous East Side family had Kennedyesque charisma and the liberal politics to match. Most of the city’s newspapers and many of its leading commentators endorsed him.
“The Times was so enamored of Lindsay in 1965 that Abe Rosenthal, by then the deputy managing editor, and Arthur Gelb, the metropolitan desk editor, upon hearing the news of Lindsay’s victory, reportedly hugged …
