May
17, 2002 1:40
p.m. Conservative
Future for Pataki
A
party and a governor.
he
Conservative Party of the State of New York put on a 40th birthday celebration
on Thursday that was a happy affair, complete with a freshly published
history of the party by George Marlin — Fighting the Good Fight
— but there were strains in the middle-aged lady of material political
consequence. They had to do not only with the future of the party but
also with the future of George Pataki, who is governor of New York thanks
to the crossover vote provided by the Conservatives in 1994.
The party has received major attention at its big affairs. Vice President
George Bush was there at its 1984 party, and on Thursday, Vice President
Dick Cheney was there, nicely introduced by his illustrious wife, Lynne.
It made for a nice opener when the vice president remarked that the year
the Conservative Party was born, he was a student at Lincoln, Nebraska,
courting his schoolmate, Lynne. "If she had married somebody else,
he'd have been vice president today."
The program rollicked along, with no less than 36 honorees seated on the
twin-decked dais, including fallen senators Alfonse D'Amato and James Buckley.
George Pataki was the third speaker. In between, as second speaker, was
the other Buckley, occupant of this space and Conservative candidate for
mayor of New York in 1965.
The underlying question at the party was whether the leadership, under the
amiable dirigiste hand of Michael Long, its chairman, had taken too many
ideological shortcuts in agreeing to nominate Pataki for a third term notwithstanding
Pataki's courtship of liberal support. State debt has soared under Governor
Pataki, he has courted organized labor with extreme largesse, and on social
issues he has been obsequiously accommodating. Buckley quoted the editorial
in National Review that wonders "whether the only abortion law
Governor Pataki would oppose would be one that threatened the rights of
gays and lesbians."
There had been some talk of a challenge to Mr. Pataki by an enrolled Conservative,
but the apparent challenger faded away before the dinner. The party heard
then from Thomas Golisano, petitioning for a fight for the nomination. Golisano
is a wealthy entrepreneur from Rochester who ran for governor twice before
on the Independent line, a legacy of Ross Perot. He spent $10 million in
1998 and nosed out the Conservative line, occupying Row C. But Golisano
has not come across as a conservative of the kind pictured in the pastiche
of 1962 newspaper stories distributed at the banquet. The New York Daily
News editorial at that time had quoted with manifest approval a sentence
from the party's founders: "The Rockefeller-Javits elements must be
made to realize that so long as they abandon Republican principles in pursuit
of liberal backing, they will be denied the support of the conservative
Republicans who constitute the backbone of the party." The question
arises, on the 40th birthday, whether the Conservative Party, pursuing establishment
orthodoxy notwithstanding the firebrand fidelity of Chairman Long, is losing
its grip on conservatives, who are being asked to settle for a Governor
Pataki 40 years after they balked at settling for a Governor Rockefeller.
Since Golisano is not a registered Conservative, he'd face something of
a clerical nightmare contending against the party nominee. Conservative
dissenters from Pataki would need to write in G-o-l-i-s-a-n-o (this is chad-time
again — no spelling errors permitted) and get X thousand subscribers
in order to force a primary. That seems hard to do even for an aspirant
disposed to put up another 10 million simoleons.
Meanwhile, George Pataki is running strong. Speaking without notes he delivered
thunderous approval of his record, stressing such music for the ear of his
audience as hugely reduced welfare rolls, reduction in crime, and a forthcoming
billion-dollar tax reduction. The conversational undertow at the big party
was to the effect that if the first speaker of the evening calls it quits
in 2004 after four years, then at the next Conservative Party banquet, the
third speaker would take his place, and we would all listen to Vice President
George Pataki.
Meanwhile, George has other dragons to slay. He confided to the second speaker
that next week he would appear at Commencement at Yale University, where
he intended to propound the thesis that liberal intellectuals are intolerant
and exercise their own rigid orthodoxy. The second speaker nodded his head
in agreement, and commented that 50 years ago he had written a book about
Yale making exactly that point.
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Conservative Party of the State of New York put on a 40th birthday celebration
on Thursday that was a happy affair, complete with a freshly published
history of the party by George Marlin — Fighting the Good Fight
— but there were strains in the middle-aged lady of material political
consequence. They had to do not only with the future of the party but
also with the future of George Pataki, who is governor of New York thanks
to the crossover vote provided by the Conservatives in 1994.
