“We are,” says novelist Norman Mailer, speaking, with his customary candor, of the ticket upon which he is presently [1969] running for mayor of New York, “incompetent, innocent, and of unsavory reputation.” But, points out his running mate Jimmy Breslin, a New York journalist, “If you think we’re crazy, look at the other candidates. You wanna die.”
I love it when this happens. I want to collect all of the instances. I think I first noticed a writer running for high office when I read about popular novelist Mario Vargas Llosa running for president of Peru in 1990 against Alberto Fujimori, who won and ruled like a crazy person for the next decade.
And then there’s New York crazy. The Mailer-Breslin ticket drank a lot. They were frequently angry. Many of their sound bites were unprintable, on account of the cursing. Their platform? Satehood for the city. In other words, a New York City secession. (It’s actually an old idea.) Here’s a campaign poster illustrating the theoretical 51st state, a groovy place where each neighborhood would wield town-like power. (Click the image for a bigger view.)
Note the “Free Bikes” icon in Lower Manhattan and the “Clean Air” and “No Smog” promises blowing-in from New Jersey. Mailer-Breslin also promoted ideas that since have been adapted and embraced by our current mayor, a big fan of green space, bicycles and busting-up congestion.
Mailer’s “left-conservative” platform called for a monorail, a ban on private cars in Manhattan, a monthly “Sweet Sunday” on which vehicles would be barred from city streets, rails or air space altogether.
Well, in 1969, nuts to those ideas. Mailer got 5 percent of the vote; Breslin got 11 percent. They returned to writing. Incumbent mayor John Lindsay won his second term.
(first quote via “A Literary Ticket for the 51st State” by Richard Woodley, Life, May 30, 1969; second quote via “Podcast: Remembering Mailer for Mayor” by Sam Roberts, November 11, 2007; poster scan via frumination)