D'Amato Is Now Prophet of Doom for G.O.P. Candidates

[DoYouEverWonder]

March 26, 2006

Seven years after leaving the Senate, Alfonse M. D'Amato has plunged back into New York Republican politics with a vengeance.

With potentially devastating effect, he has publicly challenged the choices of the party establishment, warning that its favored candidates for governor, attorney general and United States senator appear to be so freighted with political baggage that they will very likely lose to Democrats in November.

Mr. D'Amato insists that his primary objective is to salvage the party that he was instrumental in reviving by installing his top aide as Republican state chairman and promoting the candidacy of George E. Pataki, then little known, in the 1994 race for governor.

But, some critics, accusing him of sabotaging the party's leading prospects, contend that he is motivated by personal animus, particularly against William F. Weld, a candidate for governor. And, they say, as a thriving consultant and lobbyist, he may also be seeking to ingratiate himself with the Democrats, especially Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the leading candidate for governor, whom he has been praising effusively.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/nyregion/26damato.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[better2know]

1. UNBELIEVABLE!! - A taste of the future?

Free article NYT

Slamming the NY Republican canidates:

<quote:>
"I've tried to meddle," Mr. D'Amato acknowledged in an interview last week, "to the extent that I said to party leaders that this would be the first year in modern history that we're in danger of losing every single statewide office."
...
"I don't think that Bill Weld represents the hopes and aspirations of the working- middle-class families; I don't think he understands our problems," said Mr. D'Amato, 68, who grew up working class, but who recently graduated to a 5,000-square-foot house on an oceanfront lot in Lido Beach on Long Island.
...
Alluding to reports in The New York Post that Kathleen Troia McFarland, a prospective Republican challenger to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, failed to vote on numerous occasions, including the election in 1984 (when she says she recalls voting), Mr. D'Amato said: "Tell me you missed the school board elections, but not voting for president, for the man who appointed you. And you're such a great Reaganite?"
...
In the interview, Mr. D'Amato said of Jeanine F. Pirro, his party's leading contender for attorney general: "She will be an easy target for her opponents in the general election. She has her lines down perfectly, but that's not good enough. When opponents bring up the record, she's going to be embarrassed." He declined to elaborate on her political liabilities: "I'm not supposed to mention that. I'm not bad-mouthing her."
<end quote>

Ouch!

A very big player to be stepping on so many big toes in such a big state.
K&R

[movonne]

2. link?

[Historic NY]

3. Old Senator Pothole Al.........King Maker.

yippy skippy he knows where the GOP dirt is buried. Actually his predictions are not that far off.

[cassiepriam]

4. Duh nt