The Conservative Party of the state of New York put on a 40th birthday celebration on Thursday that was a happy affair, complete with a freshly published history of the party by George Marlin -- "Fighting the Good Fight" -- but there were strains in the middle-aged lady of material political consequence. They had to do not only with the future of the party, but also with the future of George Pataki, who is governor of New York thanks to the crossover vote provided by the Conservatives in 1994.
The party has received major attention at its big affairs. Vice President George Bush was there at its 1984 party, and on Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney was there, introduced by his illustrious wife, Lynne. It made for a nice opener when the vice president remarked that the year the Conservative Party was born, he was a student in Lincoln, Neb., courting his schoolmate, Lynne. "If she had married somebody else, he'd have been vice president today."
The program rollicked along, with no less than 36 honorees seated on the twin-decked dais, including fallen senators Alfonse D'Amato and James Buckley. George Pataki was the third speaker. In between, as second speaker, was the other Buckley, occupant of this space and Conservative candidate for mayor of New York in 1965.
The underlying question at the party was whether the leadership, under the amiable dirigiste hand of Michael Long, its chairman, had taken too many ideological shortcuts in agreeing to nominate Pataki for a third term notwithstanding Pataki's courtship of liberal support. State debt has soared under Governor Pataki; he has courted organized labor with extreme largesse, and on social issues he has been obsequiously accommodating. Buckley quoted the editorial in National Review that wonders "whether the only abortion law Governor Pataki would oppose would be one that threatened the rights of gays and lesbians."
There had been some talk of a challenge to Mr. Pataki by an enrolled Conservative, but the apparent challenger faded away before the dinner. The party heard then from Thomas Golisano, petitioning for a fight for the nomination. Golisano is a wealthy entrepreneur from Rochester who ran for governor twice before on the Independent line, a legacy of Ross Perot. He spent $10 million in 1998 and nosed out the Conservative line, occupying Row C.