IN the spring of 1969, New Yorkers lived in a city that was going broke. It had polluted air, filthy streets, traffic tie-ups, pot-holed avenues and ever-increasing crime. They also endured during Mayor John Lindsay’s first term in office, three teacher strikes, a transit strike, a sanitation strike and slowdowns by police officers and firefighters.
John Marchi, who died last week at 87 and is being buried today, held the record for service in the state Senate (50 years) and knew first-hand the Lindsay administration’s ineptness. That’s why he believed he had to challenge the mayor in the Republican primary. In April 1969, he announced his candidacy from the steps of the state capitol in Albany. He chose the capitol because he refused to miss important Senate business just for the sake of an announcement.
Born on Staten Island in 1921, John Joseph Marchi was educated at neighborhood parochial schools. He graduated with first honors from Manhattan College in 1942 with a degree in political science. After seeing combat in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters in World War II, Marchi earned a law degree from St. John’s University in 1949 and received a doctorate of juridical science from Brooklyn Law School.
Elected to the state Senate from Staten Island in 1956, Marchi went on to become chairman of the Committee on New York City Affairs, chairman of the National Advisory Committee on State Urban Relations for the Council of State Governments and vice chairman of the State-Federal Relations Committee of the National Legislators Conference.
The 1969 Marchi mayoral primary campaign, although short on funds, was long on enthusiasm. Conservative Party activists carrying Republican registration lists went door-to-door urging voters to come out for their man. Thousands of black-and-orange bumper stickers were distributed that said simply: “Dump Lindsay.” So many cars displayed the slogan that many voters were convinced that Lindsay’s first name was “Dump.”
On primary night, with 36 percent of the registered voters coming out, Manhattan’s Republican establishment went into shock when an unknown from one of the outer boroughs defeated their man with 52 percent of the vote.
Neighborhood “street-corner” conservatives were ecstatic; Marchi had beaten Lindsay in four of the five boroughs. President Richard Nixon and even Gov. Nelson Rockefeller endorsed Marchi several days after the primary.
On the Democratic side, a fragmented party chose another fiscal conservative, Mario Procaccino, who won with only 29 percent of the vote. The New York Post concluded that the Marchi and Procaccino victories “corroborate the view that reaction is the order of the day and liberalism is in disorganized retreat.”
In the general election, running on the Liberal Party line, Lindsay went after the extreme-left vote by trumpeting his opposition to the Vietnam War. This secured the endorsement of Bella Abzug, who founded Taxpayers Campaign for Urban Priorities to help Lindsay on Manhattan’s ultraliberal West Side. The amazing Mets, winning the World Series for the first time, indirectly helped Lindsay, who basked in their post-game, locker-room glory.
Marchi’s shoe-string campaign couldn’t turn the tide. Lindsay squeaked by, re-elected with 42 percent.
Even though the city’s base conservative vote split between Marchi and Procaccino, there was good news found in these results: 58 percent of the people voted against the mayor, half the city’s Jews cast their votes for a non-liberal candidate, and Catholics voted 85 percent against Lindsay.
As well as carrying his home base of Staten Island, Marchi came in first in the ethnic neighborhoods that in 1980 formed the basis of the Reagan Revolution: Ridgewood, Maspeth, Elmhurst, Little Neck, Douglaston, Ozone Park and Cambria Heights in Queens and Bay Ridge in Brooklyn.
Finally, Marchi’s primary victory destroyed Lindsay’s dream of leading a national GOP ticket. Lindsay, as a National Review editorial observed, was “consigned to the Republican equivalent of Elba.”
Marchi went on to serve his state for another three decades in the Senate and was instrumental in formulating the financial plan that saved New York City from bankruptcy in 1975. He led the unsuccessful charge in the 1990s to win independence for his beloved Staten Island.
John Marchi: Requiescat in pace.
George J. Marlin, the 1993 Conservative Party candidate for New York City mayor, is the author of “Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party.”