JOHN V. LINDSAY is an athletic, blue-eyed Republican who has no business being mayor of New York City. Before November 2nd, 1965, a politician with any respect for his own judgement would have found it hard to imagine any Republican - much less a WASP-as mayor. But Lindsay, on a platform pledged to good government and an end to partisan politics, wriggled into City Hall on the back of the most massive defection of Democratic and independent voters the Republican party had seen since the days of Fiorello H. LaGuardia.

With evangelistic fervor, Lindsay has carried his campaign rhetoric into office, and refuses to play the game according to New York's traditional rules. He has antagonized organization Republicans by denying them patronage in return for the support he needs to put his plans for good government into effect.

In return the party has made life very difficult for Lindsay. The Mayor does not have any Republican he can rely on to represent his intrests in either the Assembly or the City Council, both of which are overwhelmingly Democratic. This makes it very difficult for him to pass even slightly controversial programs. In several instances the Mayor has had to ask a sympathetic Democrat to introduce his legislation.

It is not an accident that the Democrats have controlled New York City for so many years. In exchange for a certain number of patronage jobs the Republicans have long had a tacit agreement with the Democrats not to seriously challenge their leadership. In the recent brought presidency election in Queens, for example, the Republicans did not even field a candidate.

The Last Republican

The last Republican mayor the city has been was LaGuardia, who, like Lindsay, did not run on a straight Republican ticket, but as a fusion candidate. La Guardia won election by overwhelming majorities, but his victories were personal. He failed to achieve any lasting change in the political structure of the City, which was then and is now 70 per cent Democratic.

The Republican party, which was frankly surprised to see LaGuardia win in the first place, remained only a shadow of a party, happy to pick up patronage from a Republican mayor but unwilling to broaden its base.

This was the situation Congressman Lindsay and campaign manager Bob Price faced May 14, 1965, when Lindsay announced his candidacy for Mayor, It was obvious that Lindsay could not rely on the regular Republican organization to bring in a victory - the party had almost no organization worth mentioning. But the situation was not as grim as appeared. Starting back in 1948, in Manhattan's ninth Assembly District, Lindsay and Price had been recruiting and training a group of young and enthusiastic followers, devoted to Lindsay and disillusioned with the closed and stuffy atmosphere of the regular party. From the ninth AD the people spread into the silk stocking district to win Lindsay a seat in Congress. Over the years Lindsay's people quietly took over the Manhattan Republican leadership. Manhattan was secured with the election of the pro-Lindsay Vincent Albano as Manhattan leader.

For the mayoralty race Lindsay, therefore, had at his disposal a hardcore of workers, experienced and able to move out into the other four boroughs to set up and manage a grassroots campaign. In each neighborhood vacant stores were rented to serve as local headquarters for volunteers, in most cases Democrats or independents. These storefronts were a new campaign concept developed by whizz-politico Price.

AFTER the election Mayor Lindsay had a city to govern; but he also had some 20,000 workers on his hands, now a tight and immensely devoted organization. The Mayor had to make a choice. He could let the group disband and work with a moribund Republican party during his administration, hoping that his charisma would draw his campaign workers back on to the 1969 bandwagon. But this would be a gamble against unfavorable odds. In four years time Lindsay would have made the enemies every incumbent makes and tarnished his shiny white armor. His only alternative was to nurse the organization that had developed around him, draw it into City Hall, and keep the local volunteers active and ready for the next campaign. The decision was easy. The day after the election a letter went out to the store-front managers asking for resumes on their workers. Lindsay likes to say that his appointments are not made on a patronage basis but according to merit. Nonetheless, many of his campaign workers have moved into City Hall as everything from meat inspectors to commissioners amid cries of "Patronage", from organization Republicans who feel short-changed.

Fixing the Pot-holes

But even New York's City Hall cannot employ 20,000. Ideally, the mass of Democrats and independents who worked for Lindsay in '65, could be persuaded to change their registration. Price had a vision of dozens of Lindsay Republican Organizations mushrooming all over the city providing direct lines of communication between the neighborhood and City Hall. A resident could then walk into a neighborhood club and complain about the gaping pot-hole down the block or the broken traffic light. The complaint would immediately be funneled through to the responsible administrator, short-circuiting the normal bureaucratic process, and the pothole would be filled with impressive speed and efficiency. New Yorkers, pointing to the mayor and the clubs, would agree that it is the Republicans who get things done.

There were, however, several hitches in this plan. Many volunteers were not ready to take the final plunge of registering as Republicans. So Price, developed an alternate scheme. Volunteers were encouraged to form CIA's (Civic Improvement Agencies). These were designed to operate much like the neighborhood Republican clubs, but without requiring members to work in partisan politics.

While members of the neighborhood clubs would be tied to Lindsay and to the Republican party, the members of the CIA's would owe their allegiance to the man but not necessarily to the party, Price speculated that these agencies would attract young people into a revitalized Republican party. These new party members would be just as willing to campaign for a Republican district leader as for Mayor Lindsay.

But the CIA's have not lived up to Price's expectations. Some Lindsay aides say that the effort to politicize them did not come early enough. CIA workers in the Bronx and Brooklyn have been unwilling to come out and campaign in district races.