According to this story, the New York Conservative Party leadership has endorsed Repubican Rick Lazio for Governor of New York. New York holds primaries on September 14. It is now virtually certain that Lazio will be the only nominee on the Conservative Party primary ballot. UPDATE: The Conservative Party will have a contested gubernatorial primary. Ralph Lorigo got enough support at the party’s convention to be on that primary ballot automatically.
The story also discusses the gubernatorial candidacy of Carl Paladino, who plans to run in the general election as the candidate of a new party. The story says the group hasn’t chosen a name for the party yet, but it may have a connection to the “Tea Party” label.
Why Rick Lazio vs Myer Mermel? What’s the difference on the issues?
Myer Mermel is actually more conservative than Rick Lazio, I believe. But I am no expert on these guys.
Hey tea-baggers!! Forget Sarah Palin, now you REALLY have a fool to rally around: Rand Paul. By parsing the 1964 Civil Rights Act we can see what he and the tea-baggers stand for: discrimination based on race and physical ability. But then the tea-baggers are just a sad group of old, white, rich, malcontent republicans who hate blacks, hispanics, asians, the middle class and the poor and can’t stand the fact that we have a black president. When they howl “TAKE BACK AMERICA!!!” they mean to take it back from the minorities. Luckily the middle class and the poor far outnumber the tea-baggers so they will have little effect in November and Rand Paul will fade away. Mark Montgomery NYC, NY 10036 boboberg@nyc.rr.com
I’m not a philosophical supporter of the Conservative Party of New York, but I acknowledge they are politically savy – having learned how 3rd parties can have clout from the old Liberal Party of New York State.
The Conservative Party knows that if they put up a candidate against Rick Lazio it would only split the “conservative” vote and nobody “conservative” would win. I don’t expect Lazio to win anyway, but the Conservative Party will come out of the election with a better showing by supporting Lazio than if they nominated an “unknown.”
Until 3rd parties are strong enough to run candidates on their own, they must (where the law allows) practice “fusion” or “co-nomination” as they do in New York State. Eventually the 3rd party, with the right amount of exposure and earned respect from the voters, will have the opportune time to run their own candidates for office.
Now I am not saying that there are times when a 3rd party should run a separate candidate anyway with the DESIRED objective of defeating a major party candidate for the same office who shares the same philosophy. There are times when “teaching them a lesson” is appropriate. But in the New York gubernatorial election in 2010, Andrew Cuomo is going to win, so working with the Republican party for fusion or co-nomination is smart politics for the Conservative Party.
The Independence Party of New York also demonstrated their political savy by “fusing” with or “co-nominating” Cuomo. The Independence Party is going places in that state and I predict the day will come soon when it will elect a Governor from among its own membership.
Sadly, many 3rd parties have not learned this lesson. And I doubt most of them ever will.