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He is even less of a political pragmatist. He apparently fails to appreciate the intuitive genius of the accomplished politician. He was outraged when people began to talk about John Lindsay for President after his walks through Harlem helped prevent riots last summer. Buckley wanted to know how this equipped him for the presidency: "Is the Secretary of State properly engaged in walking up and down the Biafran frontier, grinning and winking at the disputants? Would he then rush off to Wuhan, there to quiet the impulses of the Red Guards?"
Second Avenue Bikeway. Nowhere was Buckley's lack of realism as a politician better demonstrated than in his madcap race for mayor. It was never exactly clear why he was doing it. He knew he didn't have a prayer of winning. When a reporter asked him what he would do if elected, he quipped, "I'd demand a recount." One of his aims was to spoil John Lindsay's chances: to Buckley, nothing is more reprehensible than a liberal Republican, because he has diluted conservative doctrine. His politics largely formed by the neat formulations of books rather than by the messy maneuverings of everyday life, Buckley would like to see a clear-cut ideological division between the two parties: all the conservatives in the Republican Party, all the liberals in the Democratic. Today's unwieldy, ideologically impure parties, somehow absorbing all sorts of seemingly incompatible groups, profoundly offend him. As Barry Goldwater told him: "As a political kingmaker, you're a wrong-way Corrigan."
Because he misunderstands the fluid nature of U.S. party politics, Buckley probably helped Lindsay win. He siphoned off many conservative Democratic votes that otherwise would have gone to Abe Beame; he scared many liberal Democrats into voting for Lindsay. In the campaign, however, he momentarily fascinated many liberals with some thoughtful proposals (a heavy inbound toll on Manhattan bridges and tunnels to reduce traffic into the city), some antic ones (building an overhead bikeway down Second Avenue so that New Yorkers could improve their muscle tone), and almost total political candor. Even that well-known liberal Groucho Marx said that if he were a New Yorker, he'd vote for Buckley. And he wasn't kidding.
Hyperbolic Tradition. It took liberals a long time to appreciate Buckley. His public encounters at first tended to be nasty, brutish and short. After Buckley appeared on his show, Jack Paar told the TV audience that Buckley had "no humanity." Buckley described David Susskind as the most deserving candidate for the "title of Mr. Eleanor Roosevelt." Susskind retaliated on camera by ridiculing Buckley's mannerisms and calling them "symptoms of psychotic paranoia." Buckley did not add to his popularity by co-authoring a book called McCarthy and His Enemies with his brother-in-law, L. Brent Bozell. Charge by charge, Buckley and Bozell examined McCarthy's accusations and found them largely warranted. Buckley is still defensive about the book. "There is a hyperbolic tradition in American politics," he says, "and suddenly everyone expected McCarthy to be very fastidious."