After the Conservative Party candidate dropped out of the race for Representative Vito Fossella’s seat, I asked the chairman of the state party if Fossella himself could make a late entry into the race.

“This opens the door for a candidate,” chairman Mike Long told me, before adding, “I have not had any conversations with Vito Fossella about this. There’s no strategy for Vito Fossella here.”

Fossella declined to seek re-election after admitting to having fathered a child out of wedlock with a woman in Virginia. The relationship between Fossella and the woman began unraveling when Fossella called her to bail him out of jail in May after being arrested on a D.  read more »

Here's video from Rudy Giuliani's brief appearance at the Kings County Republican Committee’s annual fund-raiser last night, where he paid tribute to his former community assistance commissioner, Rosemarie O’Keefe.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else tonight,” Giuliani told the audience, which gave him a warm, though not particularly impassioned, welcome. “We met in 1989 and she worked very, very hard to get me elected in 1989, [and] we didn’t succeed, but we became very good friends,” he said.

Giuliani spoke for about eight minutes, praising O’Keefe’s work with families of 9/11 victims and her efforts to build the Republican Party. He made no mention of the presidential race, nor of his plans for the future.  read more »

Here's what I've heard so far about who might run for Vito Fossella's seat now that the congressman has said he is staying in office but not seeking re-election.

A spokesman for Democratic City Councilman Domenic Recchia of Brooklyn, the best-funded challenger, said he’s still in the race, despite some rumblings that he might drop out. Democratic attorney Steve Harrison is also still running.

On the Republican side, the names of State Senator Andrew Lanza and District Attorney Dan Donovan have been floated. But a bid by either would come at a cost to the party. A Lanza run could jeopardize one of the State Senate seats that give Republicans a majority. And Donovan would have to give up his safe seat as district attorney, in which case David Paterson would almost certainly appoint a Democrat to that borough-wide position.  read more »

The latest odd twist in the Eliot Spitzer vs. Joe Bruno saga is the question of who initially complained about Bruno’s state funded traveling which led Spitzer to have Bruno trailed by state troopers in order to log his traveling?

A spokesman for Spitzer is quoted in a Post story as saying Conservative Party leader Michael Long made the initial complaint. Long, who has feuded with both Bruno and Spitzer, called that a complete lie.

Long went a bit further during an interview this morning on WABC Radio, where he said:

“I just hung up the phone, right before I got on this show, I called Governor Sptizer and I asked him quite frankly—that I was very upset with this, number one—and I asked him to find out who fabricated this story. And I expected an apology from a member of his staff.”

The response?

“His response was he really doesn’t deal with these things” and “he doesn’t pay attention to the tabloids and that he would pass my request along. He’s the governor of the state of New York. Who’s he going to pass it to?”  read more »

While the New York State Republican Party is moving right now to endorse Rudy Giuliani, the state Conservative Party is biding its time.

State chairman Mike Long said that he and his party aren’t endorsing any of the Republican presidential candidates yet. (Which is a departure from their strategy in the governors race, which was to endorse their candidate before the Republicans did.)

“It’s very early and there’s no need for the Conservative Party to jump on any bandwagon yet until we hear from all the candidates,” Long told me in a telephone interview just now.

“There’s a hesitation as to really seeing who will develop into the strongest candidate and will enunciate the best conservative message,” he said.

 read more »

In a letter to Conservative Party state chair Michael Long, David Verchere of Log Cabins wrote:

"On the last day of the campaign, the news cycle wasn't about Maureen O'Connell, a fair-minded fiscal conservative. It was completely overwhelmed by the Conservative Party's anti-gay attack."

[skip]

"Chairman Long, you may wish to divide and attack your way to extinction, but the Conservative Party's strategies are also killing the New York GOP by tarring fair-minded, fiscally conservative candidates as divisive and out of the mainstream."