Lindsay Commercial: For six years, this man has had the second toughest job in America, and when you’re mayor of New York your problems don’t happen quietly, they explode. And John Lindsay’s had them all. Garbage strikes, City Hall protests—sometimes it seems like they never end.

But John Lindsay’s learned how to fight like nobody else in this country . . . . And when cities all over America went up in flames, John Lindsay put his life on the line and walked the streets to hold New York together. After six years in the second toughest job in America, John Lindsay is ready for the toughest.

On December 28, 1971, John Lindsay announced his presidential candidacy in Miami. His plan had been to run as a Democrat and to participate in the Florida, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts primaries. Six months earlier, he had changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. His official conversion had begun in 1970 when he had endorsed the Democrat Arthur Goldberg over his own party’s candidate, Nelson Rockefeller, for New York gubernatorial candidate.

The key message of Lindsay’s platform was his opposition to the war in Vietnam, then into its seventh year as a full US commitment, and his position as a nationally recognized spokesman for the needs of cities.

Lindsay Commercial: I spoke out against the war seven years ago because it was a senseless waste. On hot summer nights I walked the streets of New York because we couldn’t surrender to violence. I cut pollution by 30%, because our lives were on the line. I won some, I lost some, and I learned. Maybe it’s time we had a President who knows how to fight and what to fight for. That’s why I want the job.

Responding to charges that he was abandoning the New York City, Lindsay promised to campaign out of state only on weekends. Many city aides took unpaid leaves of absence to join the campaign staff.

As the Florida primary approached, R. P. Blaikie, a former Manhattan Democratic district leader who had retired to Fort Lauderdale, arranged to have a plane fly over a well-attend beach carrying behind it a sign saying, “Lindsay Spells Tsouris,” the Yiddish word for trouble. He hoped to mobilize other Jewish retirees from New York to vote for one of Lindsay’s opponents. Lindsay finished fifth in the Florida primary, and dropped out of the race after the April 5th Wisconsin primary.