Outer Circles

‘THE ONLY difference between David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani is the way they part their hair,” says George Marlin, Conservative candidate for mayor of New York, speaking of the incumbent and his Republican-Liberal challenger.

Marlin, forty, parts his hair very strictly. He looks every inch an investment portfolio manager, which is what he is, and he is 6 feet 6 inches tall. When he was young he saw in the papers a picture of Dean Acheson, wearing a necktie puffed over the top of his vest, which so impressed Marlin that he wore his ties the same way—until he decided to run for mayor, when democracy obliged him to appear in two-piece suits.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

‘THE ONLY difference between David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani is the way they part their hair,” says George Marlin, Conservative candidate for mayor of New York, speaking of the incumbent and his Republican-Liberal challenger.

Marlin, forty, parts his hair very strictly. He looks every inch an investment portfolio manager, which is what he is, and he is 6 feet 6 inches tall. When he was young he saw in the papers a picture of Dean Acheson, wearing a necktie puffed over the top of his vest, which so impressed Marlin that he wore his ties the same way—until he decided to run for mayor, when democracy obliged him to appear in two-piece suits.