Rick Lazio won the Conservative Party's endorsement for governor yesterday. However, NY1 reports, "Lazio only got about 54 percent of the vote, just barely above the threshold needed to get on the ballot. A dissenting Conservative Party member got about 36 percent, setting up the possibility of a Conservative Party primary for governor this fall."
Lazio was supported by Conservative Party Chair Mike Long and Politico explains that there are anti-Lazio party members who would rather see Steve Levy or Carl Paladino run against Andrew Cuomo this fall, so Levy's and Paladino's supporters "teamed up and nominated Ralph Lorigo and Andrew Kay as a placeholder ticket in the hopes that either Levy or Paladino gets on the ballot at next week's GOP convention."
Paladino, Tea Party fave, said in a statement about Lazio's Conservative Party-backing, "Rick Lazio is a fine fellow but he's a moderate Republican who does not support the key tenets of the Conservative Party platform: the sanctity of life, the defense of the second amendment and fiscal conservativism. No fiscal conservative could support Andrew Cuomo's $2.4 trillion Federal Housing Goal quotas, which destroyed the national economy. But Rick Lazio did."
