Author Lee Siegel remembers when Norman Mailer ran for Mayor of New York. It was 1969 and his running mate was writer and activist journalist Jimmy Breslin. Mr. Siegel misses when candidates for Mayor and some of the Mayors themselves were big and bold and exciting.
"Mailer’s ideas were as ambitious as the city itself. His platform’s central plank was making New York the 51st state. He wanted to put free bicycles in city parks and to ban cars from Manhattan. He proposed subsidized day care, giving methadone to addicts, requiring the police to live in the neighborhoods they served and converting dilapidated waterfronts to affordable housing."
It appears Mayor Bloomberg's technocratic style and the current batch of overly managed candidates for the worlds second hardest elected office leaves him cold and yearning for a far more exciting time in New York Politics.
I was 9/10 when the Mailer/Breslin ticket tried - I wish I would have been a little older so I could have appreciated in real time.
It all sounds so exciting, glamorous and fun!
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