Steve Levy still cannot believe he is being left out of the 2010 elections.

Even after the public rebuke of the Republican Convention in May, when he fell short of the number of votes needed to be allowed onto the primary against Rick Lazio for the GOP line, he stands by his decision to his switch parties, still batting back criticism that he would have fared better had he run for Senate or attorney general. Speaking with The Capitol from his county executive office in Suffolk, he took credit for Cuomo’s policy platform, refuted charges leveled against his wife’s business and answered the question of how he will cast his vote this year.

What follows is an edited tran scri pt.

The Capitol: Looking at how Rick Lazio is doing now with the money and petitions he has filed, some people have argued he was a better candidate when he was running against you. Your thoughts?
Steve Levy: We were able to convince 43 percent of the Republican caucus, Republican delegates, that the party would benefit from a competitive primary, and I still believe that. We were in the news every day when that competition was in place, and now it’s gone back into more of a lower mode. This is the point we made. It was rather miraculous that having just switched parties two months earlier we did come just one county away from making it onto the ballot. Had Erie thrown their support in with us we would have had that primary and I think it would have been to [Carl] Paladino’s benefit to have a three-way primary, but they had their own reasons for not throwing their support our way. We thought it might come our way, which would have been quite a coup if we pulled it off. It was always going to be a tough uphill battle having to switch parties a few months before, but the fact that we were able to garner so much support in such a short time was miraculous. Think about it. Had a Republican said in March that he was going to switch parties and go into the Democratic convention and get votes to get on the Democratic ballot, they got 2 percent of the vote, they would be seen as amazing and we who got 43 percent.

TC: Is there anything you feel like you maybe could have done differently to push yourself over the edge to get on the ballot?
SL: People have their theories, but not really. Some said we should have switched a year ago, but remember, the die-hards still would have said, “You’re an opportunist,” and I wouldn’t have had the leverage to at least get a good number of them signing on to my candidacy before I ever announced. As a Democrat I was in no position to go in there and say, “Stop the presses, everyone support me.” It would have been very arrogant. There had to be a movement within the party where they were asking me to run, and that did not exist a year ago, it was only when they came to me publicly that my chance became viable. When they came to me, I was able to say, “Well, when you publicly endorse me and support me, I can switch over.” Which gave me a modicum of support. If I had switched parties a year ago I wouldn’t have had that basis. It would have been even harder to get on the ballot. So a lot of people not really knowing the circumstances said, “Well, you should have switched a while ago.” Now, don’t get me wrong, having switched now, if I were to run four years from now, it is a whole different situation, because you would have had four years of elections in between and people seeing you’re the real deal, you’re not switching back. But it’s kind of a Ronald Reagan mid-life thing, but it was a little too soon for some of these die-hards. It was one thing to ask them to accept you into the party, it was a whole different thing to ask these folks to make you their standard bearer after just two months. So that’s why I think it was miraculous that we got as far as we did.

TC: Can Paladino give Lazio the same good competition for the Republican party as you?
SL: It will be very interesting, but I don’t know if he is going to generate the same type of buzz that I did the first two months, being someone who switched over who had an elected office as a base and had some real ideas to talk about.

TC: Were the stories about your wife and how she has conducted her business blowback from your controversial move to switch parties?
SL: There’s no question that once you’re a Republican the media double standard kicks in. And we had an ethics opinion clearly illustrating that her work with outside hospitals was approved and perfectly fine and it wasn’t an issue when I was a Democrat, but suddenly it was one to some media outlets when I became a Republican.

TC: How are things for you back in Suffolk?
SL: A lot less taxing on the body.

TC: Are county Democrats viewing you with wary eyes these days?
SL: No. Listen, I’ve always had a volatile relationship with the Legislature, whether I am a Democrat or a Republican, because they see their role as spending money and my role is to balance the budget, so that’s an inherent conflict regardless of one’s party affiliation. I haven’t changed my philosophy at all. I have had six years in a row without a general fund tax increase and I’m going to do everything I can to make it a seventh year.

TC: So you plan on sticking with the party switch and staying a Republican?
SL: Yeah, contrary to what some less-informed folks would hypothesize, this was not an opportunistic move on my part. I had already been endorsed by the Republican and conservative parties in my prior elections. And to people in Suffolk County this switch was taken with a big yawn, because they had seen my fiscally conservative policies as being aligned with being a more independent official to begin with.

TC: Some have suggested that you would have fared a lot better if you had jumped in the race against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Did you ever think about that at all?
SL: What some people don’t realize is that I would not have been able to use those funds on a federal level. So these are people from the outside not looking at the whole story. The funds I had are transferable on the state level. Plus my love, and my forte, is to be a strong administrator, which the state desperately needs. Listen, U.S. Senate is a fantastic privilege for anyone to have, but this year I felt it was more my calling to try and straighten out the fiscal mess in New York having been able to straighten out a similar mess of the county I inherited

TC: And what about the race for attorney general?
SL: A lot of people suggested that I run for that position, but it wasn’t the same passion that I had for the governor’s spot even though my chances would have been a lot better on the AG ballot. If I were going to make this major life change both as far as registration and a big race, I wanted it to be the goal that would radically change the finances of this state, and only the governor’s spot would allow me to do so.

TC: A few months ago, Andrew Cuomo dropped a policy book, with a lot of fiscally conservative ideas in there. What is your take on this plan?
SL: First, Andrew was very fortunate that he did not have a Democratic primary that would have pushed him to the left. So he has been able to incorporate a lot of the ideas that I had been espousing for quite some time. The only question is, who does the public believe would really have the chutzpah to implement these ideas? It was my belief that they would have gone for me in such an event, because they have seen that I have done it already. It’s one thing for some to say, “This is what I want to do.” It’s another thing for someone to say, “I’ve already done that.” And it takes guessing work out of the game—that’s why I thought, while four years ago I would have been crushed in a general election, this year I could have made it very competitive, because my skill set matches perfectly to what is needed for the state at this moment.

TC: Do you have any intention to support any of the legislative candidates who are running?
SL: I think it is important to have a Republican senate to create balance and to create a greater sense of fiscal responsibility. I know even parochially, from Long Island’s perspective, we were better off when we had a block of legislators who had a set of principles and were able to fight for our region, including for property tax relief. So we miss that and we’d like to get it back.
I have been helping many of their candidates and plan on continuing to do so, and I think it’s important on the Assembly side for them to be able to get 51 members. So if there is a fiscally conservative governor, he would have a block to count on to sustain his vetoes.

TC: Do you plan on voting in the Democratic primary for attorney general?
SL: I’m going to keep that private for the moment.

TC: What about in the general election?
SL: Again, that’s still in flux.

TC: Have you made a decision on re-election for county executive?
SL: Not yet. I will towards the end of this year.

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photo by Andrew Schwartz