Must See TV? Faso To Officially Anounce For Governor With Statewide TV Ad Tomorrow

Looking for something to warm the cockles of your Valentine's heart tomorrow night?

This isn't it!

But it is a statment that upstate lawyer John Faso is planning to make a strong bid for the GOP nomination for governor. The former New York State Senate minority leader will buy 90 seconds of commercial time on 11 stations statewide tomorrow night to officially announce his candidacy. Here in the NYC suburbs, the announcment can be seen at 7:58 pm on Channel 7.

It will be interesting to see if Faso, who was recently endorsed by the Manhattan Conservative Party, will have the state Conservative Party's endorsement in his back pocket when he makes his announcement. The Conservative Party's political action committee is finishing up a two-day gathering today in Albany, where members are vetting candidates for the fall elections.

With Tom Golisano deciding against entering the race and William Weld hitting some snags, including the Kentucky vocational school fiasco, the race for the GOP nomination in the governor's race appears to be fairly wide open.

Weld is not expected to get much backing from the Conservative Party because of his liberal stance on social issues. No Republican has won a statewide race without Conservative Party support since 1974.

Also in the race are Assemblyman Patrick Manning from Duchess County and Randy Daniels, a former Secretary of State for New York who lives in the Bronx.

Just how wide open is this race? The latest Marist College poll on New York State politics shows 50% of registered Republicans undecided, 33% backing Golisano (who had not ruled himself out at the time of the Feb 1. poll) and all the others in the single digits.