Run, Writer, Run!
Briefly

Buckley's finest political moment was his 1965 candidacy for mayor of New York City on the Conservative Party line. His platform was higgledy-piggledy, veering from libertarian (legalize gambling) to authoritarian ('quarantine all [drug] addicts') to the wise and humane (anti-urban renewal and pro-neighborhood schools). Buckley's twitting of the handsomely hollow limousine-liberal Republican (and eventual winner) John Lindsay—who 'rises from banality, if only to arrive at fatuity'—was the primary delight of his campaign.
His supercilious disdain for grubby politics, affected or not, was also amusing. 'Do you want to be mayor, sir?' queried a reporter upon Buckley's declaration of candidacy, to which the candidate replied, 'I have never considered it.' He launched his staff into apoplectic orbit when, asked what he would do if he won, he answered, 'Demand a recount.'
Read at The American Conservative
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