Mario Procaccino

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Mario Angelo Procaccino (September 5, 1912-1995) was a lawyer, comptroller, and candidate for mayor of New York City.

Procaccino was born in Bisaccia, Italy. He was nine when the Procaccinos arrived in the United States, and despite poverty and discrimination, became a lawyer in the 1930s. He wasn't very successful at it but in the early 1940s Mayor Fiorello La Guardia heard him address a war-bond rally and arranged for an appointment to a $3,500-a-year post in the city's legal department. When La Guardia's administration gave way to the Democrats, Procaccino became a party worker for Tammany hall and was eventually given a minor judgeship. In 1965, needing a Bronx Italian for ethnic symmetry, (Mayoral candidate Abe Beame was Jewish) the party drafted him to run for comptroller, which despite the election of John V. Lindsay, he won handily.

Procaccino's "fifteen minutes of fame" took place in 1969 when he won the Democratic Party primary for Mayor of New York City with about 35% of the vote in a five man race, beating, among others, former Mayor Robert Wagner, Jr. and novellist Norman Mailer. Briefly having a large lead in the general election race (A June poll showed him 14 points ahead of Mayor Lindsay), and getting his face on the major American newsmagazines, the conservative Democrat lost ground quickly, this was partly due to the presence of George C. Wallace, who campaigned for him, and waging, according to famed journalist Richard Reeves "the worst political campaign in American history." The most lasting effect of Procacciano's campaign was his characterization of his opponents as "limousine liberals", a term that has become a permanent part of American political discourse.

Losing to Lindsay by a decent margin, Procaccino returned to private practice and faded into obscurity.