Swing State Project

« CA-48: How You Can Help | Main | KY-04: Draft Ken Lucas »

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Talk About Disarray

Posted by DavidNYC

It just gets more amazing by the minute. The New York State Republican Party is fighting itself over literally ever important statewide race next year:

• Senate: Jeanine Pirro has been a total bust. She's a gaffe-prone bumbler who hasn't shown herself to be an adept fundraiser. So now State Sen. Majority Leader Joe Bruno, along with a growing crowd of other malcontents, are trying to force her from the race. However, as far as I can tell, they don't have a backup plan. Would they really go back to Ed Cox, hat in hand - the man whom Pirro and the powers-that-be forced from the race?

• Governor: This fight is a little more interesting. Totally checked-out George Pataki supports Bill Weld, but he's doing little to help him. (Pataki hasn't even endorsed Weld yet.) Bruno, meanwhile, wants Tom Golisano to get the nod - a guy whom Pataki hates, given that Golisano ran against him as an independent three times and spent (I'm ballparking) at least $100 mil combined on those efforts. It's a strange battle, though, between an enfeebled Bruno and an out-of-touch, unconcerned Pataki. It's like watching an aged, washed-up prize fighter duke it out against a basketball team which is resting its stars because it thinks it's made the playoffs. And yes, the fight is so strange, it merits a completely messed up sports analogy like that.

• Attorney General: Ha! Did you even know there was a squabble here, too? Bruno wants Pirro to pirouette into the AG's race. But why? As I noted above, it's not like he's got someone great waiting in the wings to run for senate. (The second coming of Rick Lazio?) Here's your answer: State Sen. Michael Balboni, who represents a chunk of Nassau County right on the Queens border, wants to run for AG himself. This is a huge problem for Bruno, who is perilously close to losing his majority in the State Senate. An open seat in NY-SS-07 is an awesome opportunity for the Dems. Even though Balboni won his last election by 20 points, Dem registration actually outnumbers GOP totals in the district: 77,612 to 72,788. Bruno, predictably, wants Pirro in the AG's race to keep Balboni from going anywhere.

I think the only statewide race the GOP isn't warring over is comptroller, but just wait. I'm sure they'll start bickering over that one soon enough.

Posted at 04:02 AM in New York, Republicans | Technorati

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/mt/mt-track-ssp.cgi/2007

Comments

Any idea on who'd get the Conservative Party nomination for Governor?

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be Weld. Would it be Golisano? Would someone else get the nod?

Should somebody do H2H polls with Spitzer v. Weld v. Golisano v. Daniels?

But yeah.. the New York Republican Party is really melting down hard.

Posted by: RBH at December 1, 2005 08:59 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment