Politics: Plans & Perils

It was beginning to look like Rockefeller v. Wagner in 1962, and there were no signs that New York’s Republican Governor had lost any of his relish for Rockefeller v. Kennedy in 1964.

Delivering his annual State of the State message to the New York legislature.Rocky last week made a clear bid for the extra 1962 votes that might make him a 1964 Republican showpiece. In so doing he drew campaign-flavor criticism from New York’s Mayor Robert Wagner. Said Wagner of the Rockefeller speech: “Never were so many words used to say so little.”

Rockefeller called for an ambitious program of social benefits that would raise New York’s current budget of $2.4 billion by some $200-225 million in fiscal 1962-63. He asked for a two-step rise in the state’s minimum wage from $1 to $1.25, an increase in workmen’s compensation from a maximum $50 to $55 a week, expanded medical care for the aging, more action against discrimination. He promised a whole spate of legislative requests in the months to come, ranging from more humane treatment for dope addicts to help for migrant workers. Said Rockefeller: “It is the proper and historic role of the state to be a leader and an innovator. The preservation of states’ rights critically depends upon the fulfillment of states’ responsibilities.

Only One Description. The New York Times called Rocky’s message “a legislative program and a political credo that can only be described as liberal,” and the liberal New York Post, in an encomium that must have made many Republicans shudder, hailed it as a reaffirmation of “allegiance to the concept of the ‘welfare state.’ ” With it, Rockefeller hopes to attract liberals of both major parties, but his chief aim is support from New York State’s Liberal Party, whose nearly 300,000 votes could mean the difference between victory and defeat—or between a big win and a skimpy one.

But such strategy could backfire against Rocky—particularly if Bob Wagner is the Democratic candidate. Wagner won his recent re-election for mayor with the help of the Liberal Party and the city’s liberal-leaning reform Democratic groups; they would almost certainly back him for Governor if he lives up to his promise to throw New York City’s Democratic bosses out of power (last week, at Wagner’s instigation, Brooklyn Boss Joe Sharkey was demoted from his position as city council majority leader).

Hourly Opportunities. Although Representative Samuel S. Stratton, a personable upstate Democrat who was gerrymandered out of his seat by the Republican legislature, has declared for the Democratic nomination for Governor, he is little known in New York City and would probably defer to a “draft” of Wagner—who last week publicly claimed the leadership of New York State’s Democratic Party; in the meantime Stratton serves as a fine stalking-horse for Wagner, drawing the Republicans’ attention and fire. If Wagner takes him on, Rockefeller might fail to get the heavy liberal vote he wants. And because of his liberal pitch, he might also lose votes from conservative upstate Republicans.

Rocky still had a mighty statistic on his side —the 570,000-vote majority he ran up in beating Averell Harriman for Governor in 1958, a generally Democratic year. And Wagner, like every mayor of New York, is presented hourly opportunities for getting into trouble. This may account for another statistic—no 20th century mayor of New York has gone on to become governor of the state.