NY Republican Politics as Usual
Republicans in the Middle Atlantic states have been plagued by their own actions. Take for example the recent call by NY Senate majority leader Joe Bruno for Jeanine Pirro to drop her campaign for the NY Senate seat held by Hillary Clinton. While we think Jeanine, once she had the full backing of the NY Republican and Conservative parties, could have mounted a solid but long shot campaign against Hillary, Joe Bruno publicly pulling the carpet from her clearly did more damage to her campaign. But why did he do it? Local political party power in NY? Probably. The long standing division between the D’Amato / Pataki wing and those in the Bruno camp has not been resolved for the good of NY Republicans.
What needs to happen in New York is for the few Republicans of stature to make some hard decisions for the good of the party in the state and across the country. These hard decisions should have been made before Bruno went public. Chillary certainly will have an uncontested or light weight campaign now that Pirro has been totally marginalized. In fact Pirro running for Attorney General is in question since it would appear she does the bidding of the party bosses. Not an image for an Attorney General. Good work Bruno! Your power in NY and power play on Pataki was more important than showing a united Republican party.
The hard decisions are as follows: Ed Cox, President Nixon’s son-in-law, will probably be the US Senate candidate against Hillary. He has not run for any political office. The question will be whether he can be a strong challenger to Hillary or just a token candidate. While Bruno wants Mike Bloomberg to run for Governor, Bloomberg should stay right where he is, NYC mayor, where he will do the most good to regain Republican leadership in NY state. He can run for Governor in 2010 or Schumer’s Senate seat later.
And what else needs to happen is for all Republican leaders in NY to get together, recruit, and endorse strong candidates that can win or at least run strong campaigns in this heavily Democrat voting state. And, yes, you must strongly support these candidates whether you like them or not. If you do not, then shut up and let the voters do it in a primary, after all that is what primary elections are for. And, yes, if the candidate wins the primary, then support that candidate, after all that is what winning in November is about.
— Alexander K. McClure