Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Whither the Conservative Party?

The fracture among State Republicans may result in New York's Conservative Party losing its place on the ballot, suggests its former chair, George Marlin in an op-ed in today's Post:

This past weekend, New York Conservative Party activists from around the state gathered in Albany to meet and question Republicans seeking the gubernatorial nomination. When making their choice, the party faithful need to ask themselves: Quo Vadis? Where are you going?

Their reply will determine if the party drops to Row E on the voting ballot (it's now on Row D, having lost its 32-year hold on Row C to the Independence Party in 1998) or worse — fails to receive 50,000 gubernatorial votes and be swept away into the dustbin of history, like the New York Liberal Party four years ago.

Not much for WFP members and supporters to do but watch this potential train wreck in slow motion. But a train wreck for the Conservatives, combined with the WFP push for 250,000 votes for Eliot Spitzer means Row D (or C?) for the WFP.

Right?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

well thats a nice dream, but i can't see the Conservatives getting any less than 100,000 or so as long as they manage to endorse anyone at all.

but here is my question: will the conservatives get more votes for Faso as a third party candidate or for Weld as a nonn-conservative?

whats that common wisdom on that?

Alex Navarro said...

"will the conservatives get more votes for Faso as a third party candidate or for Weld as a non-conservative?"

Good question.

A good starting place for how that race might play out is the '04 Senate race, where the GOP did Mills and the Conservatives did O'Grady.

'04 Senate Results are here:
http://www.elections.state.ny.us/elections/2004/ussenate04.pdf
Conservatives got 2.96% (220,000 votes) for O'Grady.

Compare that to the '02 gubernatorial where Pataki/Donohue got 3.7% (176,000 votes) on the Conservative line

If Manning or Fasio running on the Conservative line alone is comparable to O'Grady, and they get 3.0% of the same turnout of '02 (4,690,968), that's 139,170 votes.

If Weld gets the Conservative and Republican lines, presumably he gets less than the Pataki/Donohue vote share because his overall electoral appeal is less than the Pataki/Donohue ticket (because Pataki was better-known, because Spitzer looks stronger than McCall, because '06 is shaping up to be a better Democratic year than '02, because all current polling says so, etc.). How much less? Hard to say, but 2.96% isn't a bad starting place.

If that's right, maybe it doesn't make much difference who the Conservatives nominate.

But this an art, not a science.

WFPman said...

Good to see you guys back.