Mario Procaccino

Mario Angelo Procaccino (September 5, 1912 – December 20, 1995) was a lawyer, comptroller, and candidate for mayor of New York City.

Procaccino was born in Bisaccia, Italy. When he was nine years old, his family relocated to the United States, and despite poverty, he graduated from City College and Fordham Law School, becoming a lawyer during the 1930s. 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 with the city's legal department. When La Guardia's administration ended, Procaccino became a party worker for Tammany Hall and was eventually given a minor judgeship. In 1965, the New York Democrats supported Procaccino, a candidate from the Bronx of Italian ethnicity, for comptroller, along with a Jewish mayoral candidate, Abe Beame of Brooklyn, and an Irish-American from Queens, Frank O'Connor, for city council president. Procaccino and O'Connor were elected, but Beame was defeated by the Republican and Liberal Party of New York joint nominee, John Vlet Lindsay, a member of the United States House of Representatives and a then ally of fellow New York liberal Republicans Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and United States Senator Jacob K. Javits.

In 1969 Procaccino won the Democratic primary for mayor with 32.8 percent of the vote in a five-man contest, having defeated, among others, former Mayor Robert Wagner, Jr., liberal novelist Norman Mailer, and Bronx Borough President Herman Badillo, who later defected to the GOP. After briefly having a large lead in the general election race—a poll of June showed him leading Liberal Party nominee Lindsay by fourteen points—the mostly conservative Democrat soon lost public support, probably because he was unable to supplement his "law and order" campaign rhetoric. His campaign was, according to journalist Richard Reeves, "the worst political campaign in American history." According to Reeves, Procaccino "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory." When speaking before an African-American audience, Procaccino made a gaffe by saying, "My heart is as black as yours."

Procaccino lost the mayoralty to Lindsay in this three-way race. The vote was divided accordingly: Lindsay (Liberal) 42 percent, Procaccino (Democrat) 36 percent, and John Marchi (Republican), a member of the New York State Senate, 22 percent. For details, see New York City mayoral elections#1969. Following the election, Procaccino worked as a Tax Commissioner for Governor Rockefeller and later returned to private practice.

However, his campaign had several lasting effects on national and New York politics. One was his characterization of his opponents as "limousine liberals", a term that has become a part of the American political lexicon. The second effect was a change of New York City's election law. Because of Procaccino's slender plurality in the Democratic primary, if no candidate carries at least 40 percent of the vote, a runoff election must be organized.

Procaccino was living outside the city, in Harrison, New York, Westchester County, at the time of his death.

References

• Lizzi, Maria C. (18 September 2008). "'My Heart Is as Black as Yours': White Backlash, Racial Identity, and Italian American Stereotypes in New York City's 1969 Mayoral Campaign". Journal of American Ethnic History 27 (3).