But Golisano has not come across as a conservative of the kind pictured in the pastiche of 1962 newspaper stories distributed at the banquet. The New York Daily News editorial at that time had quoted with manifest approval a sentence from the party's founders: "The Rockefeller-Javits elements must be made to realize that so long as they abandon Republican principles in pursuit of liberal backing, they will be denied the support of the conservative Republicans who constitute the backbone of the party."
The question arises, on the 40th birthday, whether the Conservative Party, pursuing establishment orthodoxy notwithstanding the firebrand fidelity of Chairman Long, is losing its grip on conservatives, who are being asked to settle for a Governor Pataki 40 years after they balked at settling for a Governor Rockefeller.
Since Golisano is not a registered Conservative, he'd face something of a clerical nightmare contending against the party nominee. Conservative dissenters from Pataki would need to write in G-o-l-i-s-a-n-o (this is chad-time again --no spelling errors permitted) and get X thousand of votes in order to force a primary. That seems hard to do even for an aspirant disposed to put up another 10 million simoleons.
Meanwhile, George Pataki is running strong. Speaking without notes he delivered thunderous approval of his record, stressing such music for the ear of his audience as hugely reduced welfare rolls, reduction in crime and a forthcoming billion-dollar tax reduction. The conversational undertow at the big party was to the effect that if the first speaker of the evening calls it quits in 2004 after four years, then at the next Conservative Party banquet, the third speaker would take his place, and we would all listen to Vice President George Pataki.
Meanwhile, George has other dragons to slay. He confided to the second speaker that next week he would appear at commencement at Yale University, where he intended to propound the thesis that liberal intellectuals are intolerant and exercise their own rigid orthodoxy. The second speaker nodded his head in agreement, and commented that 50 years ago he had written a book about Yale making exactly that point.