{"id":2188,"date":"2010-06-02T10:30:39","date_gmt":"2010-06-02T14:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2188"},"modified":"2010-06-02T10:30:40","modified_gmt":"2010-06-02T14:30:40","slug":"can-rick-lazio-stop-new-yorks-republican-death-spiral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/06\/02\/can-rick-lazio-stop-new-yorks-republican-death-spiral\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Rick Lazio stop New York’s Republican death spiral?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Rick Lazio (Photo source: Lazio for Governor website)<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s incredibly difficult to find a narrative for the Republican Party in New York state that makes any sense.<\/p>\n

The GOP has seen its major potential candidates — Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki — shuffle toward the exits.<\/p>\n

Despite some promising early poll numbers, the party failed to find a candidate who can seriously challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.<\/p>\n

And now, with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo boasting poll numbers in rock-star territory, the Republican convention has devolved into a shooting match between three politicians that no one has ever heard of.<\/p>\n

Rick Lazio was the politician sacrificed in the Hillary Clinton Senate race a decade ago, after Giuliani dropped out.\u00a0 In this second act of his political career, he’s built a credible, if uninspired, campaign machine.<\/p>\n

But GOP chairman Ed Cox recruited a Democrat, Steve Levy, to challenge him.\u00a0 Levy won’t officially be a Republican until after the November election.<\/p>\n

And then there’s Buffalo businessman Carl Palladino, who’s threatening to run as an independent tea party candidate if he doesn’t get the Republican nod.\u00a0 Oh, and he has $10 million he’s willing to spend.<\/p>\n

Put bluntly, this is the kind of things that organizations do when there’s no real hope of doing anything productive.<\/p>\n

When no one can make a rational argument for beating Cuomo (or prevailing any other statewide race), then the irrational arguments kick in.<\/p>\n

The problem for the rest of us, of course, is that the last couple of years have made it crystal clear that we need (at least) two functioning political parties.<\/p>\n

One-party rule has been a disaster. And without competitive political races, it’s nearly impossible to find out what politicians actually think.<\/p>\n

Finally, it’s difficult for local Republicans — in places like the North Country — to compete without a credible standard-bearer at the top of the ticket.<\/p>\n

If nothing else, this convention will test Lazio.<\/p>\n

If he emerges as the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate, and somehow manages to unite and energize his increasingly punch-drunk party, it will be a sign that he’s a leader worth watching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s incredibly difficult to find a narrative for the Republican Party in New York state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}