TO PROTECT AND SERVE... THE PARTY

There is, without a doubt, a palpable sense of urgency among the leadership of the New York State Republican Party. In danger of losing the governor's seat after 12 years and holding an ever diminishing majority in the State Senate, Republican leaders have been doing everything they can to hold on to that power. And now that includes stifling dissent, destroying momentum and taking their candidates out of the public eye.

Last week, State Republican Chairman Stephen Minarik, in the name of party unity, begged former Massachusetts governor William Weld to back out of the Republican primary for governor. Following a second-place finish at the State Convention to former upstate assemblyman John Faso and the failure to procure the Conservative Party ballot line, Minarik announced that it was time for Weld to end his quest to become the governor of a second state, a quest in which Minarik played a major supporting role, and back Faso.

Weld capitulated, and Faso now stands as the only Republican candidate for governor this cycle. In an attempt to see if lightning would strike twice, Minarik then asked former Reagan administration official KT McFarland to end her campaign for Senate against former Yonkers mayor John Spencer. Unlike Weld, McFarland had a better than expected showing at the state convention and has been beating Spencer in multiple polls. McFarland has yet to do anything she's been asked of by Minarik or the rest of the State GOP, and this time was no exception. If he wants to face Hillary Clinton in November, Spencer will have to defeat McFarland in September.

Aside from placing Minarik in the awkward position of being forced to explain negative comments he's made about Faso since the campaign started, having famously declared his now preferred candidate was in "la la land" for thinking he'd have the political capital to defeat Weld several months back, the move to beg Weld out of the primary may have also done more harm than good to State Republicans. 

With one quick stroke, the considerable momentum Faso had coming out of his party's convention has been destroyed. From the start, Faso had portrayed himself as an outsider to the Republican establishment. As a true conservative, party leaders saw him as unelectable on the statewide level and continually tried to strong-arm him out of the race.  Faso beat his party's leaders back at every turn and actually did look like an anti-establishment outsider to the untrained eye, despite having served as Assembly minority leader for a number of years. But now, by accepting the establishment's support in the name of party unity, Faso will be forced to run as the Albany insider at the behest of those who never wanted him to run in the first place.

But even more damaging to Faso is the lack of a stated opponent between now and the September primary. Though State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is the presumptive Democratic nominee, he still faces a primary against Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi. Spitzer's people are not stupid, and will certainly take Suozzi's candidacy seriously regardless of current polls that show him cruising to victory. Spitzer vs. Suozzi is now the story, but the news cycle could have had a doubleheader. A primary against Weld would have kept Faso's campaign in the news day after day, and would have given Faso multiple opportunities to score points over the former Massachusetts governor. Though he is a New York native, Weld's status as a former governor of a New England state would have allowed Faso to paint his opponent as a carpetbagger. And Weld's patrician, elitist air would have given the largely unknown Faso a chance to present himself as an everyman, a persona he could have carried into a November race with Spitzer or Suozzi. Despite his campaign's best efforts in the coming months, Faso will likely have to stand by while the Democrats sort out their own races. That's just the nature of the media beast.

The race between Spencer and McFarland will have some juice, but a campaign at the top of the Republican ticket could have done wonders to energize the State's Republi-can base, which must certainly feel a sense of hopelessness coming into this year's election given the party's problems nationwide and the whiff of inevitability surrounding Spitzer. Faso could have potentially thrashed Weld in a primary election and would have looked incredibly strong coming into his race against the Democratic nominee. Instead, Faso has been forced to take his likely primary victory three months early and not through the will of the voters, but at the behest of the party bosses. Nothing would have done more for Faso in November than to beat the pants off of Weld between now and September. In his quest for party unity, Minarik may have cut Faso's campaign off at the knees.