NY State Republican Party Can't Come Up With the Goods

[Corlyss_D]

The Ringer Comes in Second

The danger signals for Bill Weld have been building for a while. The former Massachusetts governor always faced a certain parochial resistance to the idea of his running for governor in another state -- New York. Then Governor George Pataki and Rudy Giuliani, the two major figures who had encouraged him to enter the race for the GOP nomination, declined to formally endorse him. That was followed by the Conservative Party endorsing his opponent, former Assemblyman John Faso, depriving Mr. Weld of a key ballot line in November. Yesterday, the roof fell in when Mr. Weld mustered only 39% of the GOP convention delegates against Mr. Faso. Mr. Weld has vowed to take the final decision to the voters in a September primary, but it's clear the more conservative Mr. Faso is the frontrunner now.

The key to the Weld belly flop was that the Brahmin investment banker simply didn't go over well with the practical, grass-roots members of the GOP. Michael Crowley writes in the New Republic that when he was a reporter in Boston, "Weld was widely seen as a political dilettante, someone reluctant to 'get his hands dirty' in the world of retail backslapping politics. His real gifts were for political theater -- the clever quip and an amusing self-assuredness especially popular among reporters (who like John McCain partly for the same reason)."

Political reporters such as Mr. Crowley are wistfully talking about what might have been. Imagine if Mr. Weld had decided to run against Hillary Clinton this year. His odds of winning would have been slight, but against Democratic powerhouse Eliot Spitzer for governor they wouldn't have been much better. And Mr. Weld would have endeared himself to the Republican Party by providing a challenge that could have softened Ms. Clinton up for 2008. "One can imagine him slicing up the wooden Clinton in debates with his wicked wit. The press would also have taken seriously his more substantive critiques of Clinton," notes Mr. Crowley.

Instead, the GOP faces a dreary choice in its Senate primary -- a haughty foreign-policy wonk named Katherine "K.T." McFarland or a former mayor of Yonkers with a checkered past named John Spencer. In both of her races for public office, Mrs. Clinton has lucked out by drawing sub-par opponents. She must realize that in 2008, when she almost certainly will run for the White House, the honeymoon will finally be over.

-- John Fund

[Ralph]

It's going to be a very uphill struggle for any Republican candidate for governor in new York. Spitzer is enormously popular.

[jbuck919]

It's going to be a very uphill struggle for any Republican candidate for governor in new York. Spitzer is enormously popular.

And of course my absentee vote will make all the difference.

[Ralph]

It's going to be a very uphill struggle for any Republican candidate for governor in new York. Spitzer is enormously popular.

And of course my absentee vote will make all the difference.

*****

You never know.

[Corlyss_D]

It's going to be a very uphill struggle for any Republican candidate for governor in new York. Spitzer is enormously popular.

And of course my absentee vote will make all the difference.

When it's not close, they don't have to mess with your absentee vote.

[Donald Isler]

The last mayoral election here in our little village in New York State hinged on one vote. The candidates were finally instructed to settle it with a coin-toss. No, I'm not kidding!

[jbuck919]

The last mayoral election here in our little village in New York State hinged on one vote. The candidates were finally instructed to settle it with a coin-toss. No, I'm not kidding!

In your little village in New York State?! Imagine what it must be like in Stony Creek!

And statistically speaking, the presidential election of 2000 remains a coin toss, and I mean that as a mathematician. There was no way to decide such a thing within the margin of error except by a judicial fiat.

[Ralph]

The last mayoral election here in our little village in New York State hinged on one vote. The candidates were finally instructed to settle it with a coin-toss. No, I'm not kidding!

*****

He's not. New York law requires a coin toss when multiple recounts continue to yield a tie. This virtually never happens but it did in Don's small village.

[Corlyss_D]

The last mayoral election here in our little village in New York State hinged on one vote. The candidates were finally instructed to settle it with a coin-toss. No, I'm not kidding!

Don! I thought you lived in NYC. "Village" raises all kinds of van Gogh images. What and where is your village?

[Donald Isler]

Irvington, NY, a village of about 6500 inhabitants (not counting deer) in Westchester County, about 23 miles north of midtown Manhattan.

[Corlyss_D]

Oh, nice! I especially like all the green and the river and Halsey Pond Park. Do you give recitals at the Town Hall Theatre?

[jbuck919]

Corlyss, dear, there is no more such a thing as a "village" in Westchester County than there is a hamlet in Arlington, Virginia. Ever heard of megalopolis? Our Donald may be telling the truth about a rare tie, but he is pulling our leg by making us think of some bucolic setting.

I used to be a firm northeastener, but the county-based rather than town-bsed system that is prevalent south of the Mason-Dixon line is so much more rational that I am afraid I have been converted.

[Corlyss_D]

Corlyss, dear, there is no more such a thing as a "village" in Westchester County than there is a hamlet in Arlington, Virginia. Ever heard of megalopolis? Our Donald may be telling the truth about a rare tie, but he is pulling our leg by making us think of some bucolic setting.

Welll, I went to the town website and trolled the real estate offerings. It looks pretty suburban, I mean there's lots of green. And there are distinctive once-villages of Arlington that come readily to mind: Cherrydale, Hall's Hill, Ballston, Clarendon, Rosslyn, Shirlington, GlynCarlyn, East Falls Church, Buckingham, Crystal City.

I used to be a firm northeastener, but the county-based rather than town-bsed system that is prevalent south of the Mason-Dixon line is so much more rational that I am afraid I have been converted.

What is the difference? I've lived in it so long I don't notice it.

[Ralph]

Corlyss, dear, there is no more such a thing as a "village" in Westchester County than there is a hamlet in Arlington, Virginia. Ever heard of megalopolis? Our Donald may be telling the truth about a rare tie, but he is pulling our leg by making us think of some bucolic setting.

I used to be a firm northeastener, but the county-based rather than town-bsed system that is prevalent south of the Mason-Dixon line is so much more rational that I am afraid I have been converted.

*****

New York law creates cities, towns and villages. Irvington is a village. While many villages near the city are hardly pastoral, they do have a charm and identity that their denizens seek to protect. And there is much parkland.