Elections: Old Deal for New York

In the view of some of its despairing critics, New York City is just too large and complex for any one man to govern properly—and Mayor Robert Ferdinand Wagner has certainly done much to confirm that belief during his eight fumbling, scandal-specked years in office. But Wagner is a Democrat, and New York is an overwhelmingly Democratic city. And last week, after one of the dreariest campaigns in its history, New York gave Bob Wagner 1,239,533 votes for a plurality of 402,980 over his Republican opponent, Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz. Running as...