3rd Party Challenge In N.Y?

In a move that could shake up New York's Senate race, the powerful leader of the state Conservative Party said Tuesday he is on the verge of backing a candidate other than New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Giuliani is a Republican, and no GOP candidate has won statewide office in the state in more than a quarter-century without Conservative Party backing.

At the same time, a vice chairman of the Liberal Party, which in the past has backed Giuliani's mayoral bids, said many party leaders want to back Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Senate race.

Unlike other states, New York allows major-party candidates to add votes from third-party lines to their totals. That can be the deciding factor in close contests, as in 1994 when Republican George Pataki won the governorship on the strength of the Conservative Party vote.

Conservative Party chairman Michael Long refused to identify his possible alternative Senate candidate, other than to say "people will recognize the name." He said the person would probably come forward within three weeks.

Long has insisted that Giuliani, an abortion rights supporter, back a ban on what critics call "partial-birth abortion" if he wants the Conservative Party ballot line. The mayor has refused to do that.

On the Liberal Party front, Joseph Laux, a party leader from the Albany area, said he and other Hillary Clinton supporters in the party leadership found that 70 percent of their upstate colleagues also want to support the first lady's candidacy.

However, Liberal Party boss Raymond Harding is one of the mayor's key political advisers.

Harding would not comment Tuesday beyond saying that the party's policy committee would meet with prospective candidates in April before recommending an endorsement.

No Democrat has won a statewide election in New York without Liberal Party support since the party's founding more than 50 years ago.