Dubya Conquers New York
One New York battle is over for George W. Bush, but his next one could prove a lot tougher. Bush defeated John McCain in the state's GOP contest on Tuesday, walking away with at least 67 of the 93 GOP delegates at stake.
New York's GOP establishment - headed by Governor George Pataki - claimed the credit for that, but one Empire State political observer took that claim with a grain of salt.
| Hillary & Rudy Vote The two candidates in New York's Senate race did their civic duty. Looking a tad sleepy, Hillary Rodham Clinton cast her first vote as a New Yorker on Tuesday morning - and her choice was no surprise. "I voted for Al Gore," said Democrat Clinton. The First Lady was the eleventh voter at the Douglas Graffon Elementary School in Chappaqua, N.Y. when she showed up to vote at 7 A.M. After casting her vote, she told reporters, "It was great." At about the same time, the first lady's presumptive GOP rival went to his polling place in the Big Apple. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was the fifth voter at Public School 66 on East 88th Street in Manhattan. He pulled the lever for George W. Bush. |
Still, Severin and Nelson Warfield, a New Yorker who was a top aide in Bob Dole's 1996 campaign, said Pataki deserves praise for his efforts.
"The campaign was staggering and he brought it across the finish line," Warfield said of Pataki.
"The most important thing a governor can do for a presidential candidate is to deliver his state," Severin said. "I think it boosts the governor's stock tremendously. How many other governors are politically dead in the wake of the McCain juggernaut?"
And could that put Pataki in the number two spot on the GOP ticket?
"Any governor of New York is automatically a blue-chip stock," Severin said.
"If California is a no-go for Bush, then New York becomes an opportunityÂ… You don't want to write off both New York and California," said Severin.
But Maurice Carroll, head of the Quinnipiac College Polling Institute, said the numbers game that will keep Pataki off the national ticket.
"He can't deliver his state" in November, Carroll said. In New York, Democrats have a nearly five-to-three edge over Republicans in voter enrollment. Recent polls have shown Vice President Al Gore well ahead of Bush in the state, where Hillary Rodham Clinton is the Democrat's the U.S. Senate race.
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Gore clobbered Bill Bradley, 65 percent to 34 percent, in New York's Democratic primary.
Big Labor claims a big slice of the credit for the Vice President's entire Super Tuesday sweep.
On Wednesday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said labor's "unprecedented grassroots mobilization effort" gave Gore the edge.
In New York State, Sweeney said some 40 percent of Democratic voters were from union households - and 70 percent of those households voted for Gore.
New York also demonstrated what Bradley's presidential bid could have been.
Looking at his resume, Bradley is practically a favorite son in the Empire State. Former U.S. Senator from New Jersey, New York's next-door neighbor. Former basketball star for the New York Knicks who made race relations a front and center issue in his campaign. Heavyweight endorsements from former Big Apple Mayor Ed Koch and from Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who once said Gore couldn't win the general election.
With enough money to match Gore, Bradley campaigned to his opponent's left to attract votes from African-Americans and other core Democratic groups. He tried to paint Gore as a stealth conservative on abortion and gun control, citing the vice president's votes as a member of Congress. Bradley also railed against "entrenched power".
It didn't work.
Bradley's tactical approach was also open to question. Ed Koch wondered aloud why his candidate spent days trying to win a "beauty contest" in Washington State rather than campaign in delegate-rich New York.
By primary eve, even Bradley's biggest supporters in the Empire State were all but conceding defeat.
"He fought handsomely, gallantly and right to the end," said Sen. Moynihan on Monday.