Curveballs For Cox As He Tries To Pitch Full 2010 Roster
Hopes for Collins-Donovan-Faso-Giuliani ticket dim, despite new chair’s effort
Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:09:00
There is one yardstick that Republicans will use to measure the success of their new state chair, Ed Cox, who is now into his third month on the job.
“It’s all going to revolve around whom he can line up as candidates for the statewide offices,” said Rob Ryan, a longtime GOP operative who managed former Gov. George Pataki’s 1994 campaign, and has known Cox since then. “The hope that everybody has for Ed Cox is that he’ll somehow pull everything together and make it fly again.”
As a result, Cox has taken an aggressive—some say meddling—approach toward shaping the GOP ticket for next year’s elections. In private conversations across the state, he has deployed a mix of charm and muscle, luring up-and-comers into big-ticket races and nudging marquee Republicans out of the way.
Cox has talked up Erie County Executive Chris Collins as a potential gubernatorial candidate, according to people who have spoken with him, even as Giuliani weighed a run and former Long Island Rep. Rick Lazio continues his own effort to collect endorsements. Cox’s trips to Western New York, where he has promoted Collins as a statewide contender, angered Giuliani lieutenants and sparked tension between his aides and the state party.
Cox has also spoken with Dan Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney, about the possibility of running for attorney general, according to people close to both men, and has attempted to convince John Faso, a friend and the party’s 2006 gubernatorial nominee, to make another run for comptroller. Faso carried 49 percent of the vote against Alan Hevesi in 2002.
So far, though, Cox has been coming up dry.
Collins was hobbled earlier this year by a controversial jab at Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Donovan has kept mum while Attorney General Andrew Cuomo guards his own intentions. And Faso has expressed an interest in challenging Rep. Scott Murphy instead, as his associates and national Republican leaders are urging him to do.
The recruiting efforts have not gone without controversy either. Republican operatives were bowled over by the news last month that Cox had been courting Emil Henry, Jr. to make a self-financed run for governor. Henry’s résumé includes stints with both the Bush Treasury Department and Lehman Brothers, each one of them politically toxic enough in itself.
“What is the New York GOP thinking?” wondered conservative writer Brian Faughnan.
“It’s going to come down to getting out there and convincing people,” said one GOP official close to Cox who did not want to be named. “The party for years had been allowed to atrophy, so it’s hard identifying who some of these candidates can be—because pickings are a bit slim.”
Names for U.S. Senate have also begun to emerge, but only after weeks of back-and-forth between Cox and Giuliani over whether the former mayor would entertain a challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand. The thinking, Cox’s associates say, was to clear the field for a gubernatorial candidate like Henry or Collins, which would allow the rest of the ticket to fall quickly into place.
But Giuliani’s aides say the attempt to steer him into the Senate race was futile, and that the lobbying campaign by Cox kept other potential Senate candidates, such as Larchmont Mayor Liz Feld, from touring the state and building early support for a run. Only now have they begun to float their names, less than a year away from a race against a sitting senator with $5 million in the bank and the support of the White House.
“People have told him since the moment he got there to find someone to run for the United States Senate and stop jerking around with Rudy,” said one Giuliani lieutenant, describing the message sent to Cox. “One of the things people are going to do is start blaming him. … ‘What are you doing? Where’s the rest of the slate?’”
Some Republicans and Cox supporters caution that close to a year remains before the election, which they say is enough time to field a statewide slate. The last time the Republicans went this late in the cycle without a full ticket, they say, was 1994, when Pataki ended up defeating then-Gov. Mario Cuomo and Republican Dennis Vacco won the attorney general’s race.
But aside from the nationwide Republican wave that year, the difference between now and then, others counter, is that there is no GOP bigwig to throw his weight behind the state chairman and convince the rest of the party to rally around a gubernatorial candidate. Without that, Cox’s lonely task of crisscrossing the state and delivering his pitch to potential candidates is likely to be much less effective, and may prevent the Republicans from raising the mountains of cash they need to challenge Democratic incumbents.
“In this version of the school play, there’s nobody to play the role of Al D’Amato,” said former State Sen. Raymond Meier, who was mentioned as a possible state chairman before Cox won the job. “Once the gubernatorial candidate is settled on, then the pieces start moving.”
“It’s all going to revolve around whom he can line up as candidates for the statewide offices,” said Rob Ryan, a longtime GOP operative who managed former Gov. George Pataki’s 1994 campaign, and has known Cox since then. “The hope that everybody has for Ed Cox is that he’ll somehow pull everything together and make it fly again.”
As a result, Cox has taken an aggressive—some say meddling—approach toward shaping the GOP ticket for next year’s elections. In private conversations across the state, he has deployed a mix of charm and muscle, luring up-and-comers into big-ticket races and nudging marquee Republicans out of the way.
Cox has talked up Erie County Executive Chris Collins as a potential gubernatorial candidate, according to people who have spoken with him, even as Giuliani weighed a run and former Long Island Rep. Rick Lazio continues his own effort to collect endorsements. Cox’s trips to Western New York, where he has promoted Collins as a statewide contender, angered Giuliani lieutenants and sparked tension between his aides and the state party.Cox has also spoken with Dan Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney, about the possibility of running for attorney general, according to people close to both men, and has attempted to convince John Faso, a friend and the party’s 2006 gubernatorial nominee, to make another run for comptroller. Faso carried 49 percent of the vote against Alan Hevesi in 2002.
So far, though, Cox has been coming up dry.
Collins was hobbled earlier this year by a controversial jab at Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Donovan has kept mum while Attorney General Andrew Cuomo guards his own intentions. And Faso has expressed an interest in challenging Rep. Scott Murphy instead, as his associates and national Republican leaders are urging him to do.
The recruiting efforts have not gone without controversy either. Republican operatives were bowled over by the news last month that Cox had been courting Emil Henry, Jr. to make a self-financed run for governor. Henry’s résumé includes stints with both the Bush Treasury Department and Lehman Brothers, each one of them politically toxic enough in itself.
“What is the New York GOP thinking?” wondered conservative writer Brian Faughnan.
“It’s going to come down to getting out there and convincing people,” said one GOP official close to Cox who did not want to be named. “The party for years had been allowed to atrophy, so it’s hard identifying who some of these candidates can be—because pickings are a bit slim.”
Names for U.S. Senate have also begun to emerge, but only after weeks of back-and-forth between Cox and Giuliani over whether the former mayor would entertain a challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand. The thinking, Cox’s associates say, was to clear the field for a gubernatorial candidate like Henry or Collins, which would allow the rest of the ticket to fall quickly into place.
But Giuliani’s aides say the attempt to steer him into the Senate race was futile, and that the lobbying campaign by Cox kept other potential Senate candidates, such as Larchmont Mayor Liz Feld, from touring the state and building early support for a run. Only now have they begun to float their names, less than a year away from a race against a sitting senator with $5 million in the bank and the support of the White House.
“People have told him since the moment he got there to find someone to run for the United States Senate and stop jerking around with Rudy,” said one Giuliani lieutenant, describing the message sent to Cox. “One of the things people are going to do is start blaming him. … ‘What are you doing? Where’s the rest of the slate?’”Some Republicans and Cox supporters caution that close to a year remains before the election, which they say is enough time to field a statewide slate. The last time the Republicans went this late in the cycle without a full ticket, they say, was 1994, when Pataki ended up defeating then-Gov. Mario Cuomo and Republican Dennis Vacco won the attorney general’s race.
But aside from the nationwide Republican wave that year, the difference between now and then, others counter, is that there is no GOP bigwig to throw his weight behind the state chairman and convince the rest of the party to rally around a gubernatorial candidate. Without that, Cox’s lonely task of crisscrossing the state and delivering his pitch to potential candidates is likely to be much less effective, and may prevent the Republicans from raising the mountains of cash they need to challenge Democratic incumbents.
“In this version of the school play, there’s nobody to play the role of Al D’Amato,” said former State Sen. Raymond Meier, who was mentioned as a possible state chairman before Cox won the job. “Once the gubernatorial candidate is settled on, then the pieces start moving.”
