‘I WAS a nobody,” Rep. Rick Lazio told me. He was explaining the gratitude he had felt 20 years before, when former senator James L. Buckley—in response to a letter from Lazio—invited the young law student to lunch. Five days after his announcement that he would run against Hillary Clinton for the seat Jim Buckley once held, Lazio was greeting a crush of well-wishers among the 6,000 guests in the Washington Convention Center for the Republicans’ annual House-Senate dinner. President Bush, Bob Dole, and scores of congressmen were at the congressional committees’ biggest fundraiser of the year, but the black-tie crowd jostled around the party’s newest celebrity. Rick Lazio was a nobody no longer.
As Lazio reminisced about his lawschool days in Washington, he was interrupted with a cheerful greeting of “Hi, Senator,” from Sen. Rod Grams of Minnesota. Republican members of Congress are confident that they are now fielding an aggressive, articulate, and telegenic winner in New York, and one who is more of a team player than his moderate reputation would suggest. Lazio’s ethnic good looks and ready Ultra-Brite smile could land him in the cast of Friends, but he is far more disciplined and determined than the coffee-klatsch crowd at Central Perk.
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