IS it time for conser vative Republicans to throw in the towel for the foreseeable future in New York state?
News that former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld is giving serious thought to challenging Eliot Spitzer for governor next year – if, as now looks likely, Gov. Pataki doesn’t run – reinforces the fact that the New York GOP has a dearth of credible candidates for statewide office.
And the only Republican with serious statewide possibilities – Rudy Giuliani, whose aides say he won’t run for governor or U.S. Senate – comes from the same social-liberal mold as Weld.
New York has long been blue territory, of course. But for years now, it’s been growing even bluer.
Democrats have carried the Empire State with close to 60 percent in each of the last three presidential elections – two of which were won by Republicans. Indeed, no Republican has won a majority in any statewide election since 1998.
In three races, Pataki has scored a majority only once – in 1998, his first re-election bid. And the GOP hasn’t won a Senate contest here by any margin since the first George Bush was president.
Daunting as the statewide outlook may be for Republicans, for conservatives it’s downright bleak. For decades, they’ve only won in a fluke.
Jim Buckley was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1970 on the Conservative line because of a split in the liberal vote; same story with Al D’Amato in 1980.
Pataki did win as a (pro-choice) conservative in 1994 – because the electorate was tired of three-term Gov. Mario Cuomo and had become inflamed by high crime rates and Cuomo’s opposition to capital punishment.
Even then, Pataki just squeezed through, by a 4-point margin – despite the national Republican landslide that year (which swept in attorney general candidate Dennis Vacco, too). Against another Democrat, Pataki likely would have fallen short.
Besides which, after two years in office, Pataki started lurching left on both social and economic issues – and hasn’t stopped lurching.
Which brings us back to Bill Weld. On hot-button social issues, he stands proudly outside the mainstream of national GOP opinion. But he was elected in Massachusetts as a decided hawk on both crime and government spending.
And he came through: He brought in four balanced budgets, slashing his first one by an astonishing 22 percent. He reduced the Medicaid rate of growth by 64 percent. And not only did he refuse to raise taxes, he actually repealed part of the state sales tax.
Of course, Weld would remain a long-shot should he decide to run. He has no New York presence, though he was born and raised here. And, to be frank, he’s considered – well, quirky is the nicer word.
But he’s probably the best the Republicans have to offer. Which, on one level, speaks ill of the state GOP leadership for not cultivating a farm system of prospective candidates during the Pataki years. But it also may be that only a Weld-style Republican – hawkish on the key local issues of crime and taxes/spending, though socially liberal – can win in New York these days.
Certainly, that’s the political pairing that propelled Giuliani into office and has kept him a viable statewide (maybe even national) figure. As the old saw goes, all politics is local. If a GOP candidate holds the line on crime and taxes, even conservatives may not care that he endorses same-sex marriage.
But the outlook isn’t all grim for social conservatives. After all, up in Weld’s old state – one that, like New York, is as blue as they come – voters in 2002 elected Mitt Romney as their governor. And he’s far more in step with the GOP heartland on all issues than is the man who’s now thinking about going to Albany.