McFarland Closes In On Ballot Spot With Orange County GOP Nod

Republican U.S. Senate candidate KT McFarland won the endorsement of Orange County Republicans last night.

The endorsement puts McFarland within striking distance of the 25% of votes she'll need at next week's convention to gain a spot on the September primary ballot.

According to UrbanElephants.com, the backing of the Orange County GOP and that of the party head in Tompkins County earlier this week, put McFarland at about 3 percentage points below the magic 25% mark.

SIENNA POLL PAINTS PICTURE OF PESSIMISTIC GOP AS CONVENTION NEARS

With the state GOP convention coming up in just a few days, a poll of Republicans by the Siena Research Institute paints the picture of a party that is a bit downcast.

Of those Republicans polled, 56% say they expect a Democrat to be elected governor this fall, while 30% say they expect a Republican to win.

Asked if the felt the party's candidate could win at least one of the four statewide races this year (U.S. Senate, governor, atttorney general and comptroller), 55% said that sounds doable.

The GOP trails badly in all four races in various recent polls.

Asked their preference for governor, 22% prefer John Fasso while 17% favor Bill Weld. Sixty-one percent remain undecided.

In the race for U.S. Senate, John Spencer is one point ahead of KT McFarland 21% to 20%. Some 59% have no opinion yet in this race.

The most striking numbers - roughly three of four Republicans don't know the four main candidates for the two top posts well enough to have formed an opinion.

WSJ BLASTS STATE GOP's TREATMENT OF FASO, SAYS PARTY HAS LOST ITS WAY

The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial today, scolded the state GOP. The paper chides the party's top brass for turning their backs on John Fasso, whom the paper called "principled" and a candidate in "the best Reagan tradition."

RUDY, BLOOMBERG SITTING OUT THE CONVENTION

Mike Bloomberg is the Republican mayor of the state's (and country's) largest city. Rudy Giuliani is the party's most popular New Yorker on the national scene. One is seen as having presidential aspirations. The other is being pushed by aides to have similar aspirations. The current leader of the state party is Gov. George Pataki, who also has designs on the presidency.

All this, as reported in the New York Post today, adds up to Bloomberg and Giuliani not scheduled to be on Long Island next week when the GOP convention begins.

BLOOMBERG TAKES ON RADICAL RIGHT

Bloomberg, in a commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University's medical school today, went head-on against the major causes of the radical right.

Here's just one example of the theme of the speech, the battle between "political" science and science.

"Political science" knows no limits. Was there anything more inappropriate than watching political science try to override medical science in the Terry Schiavo case?"

Portions of Bloomberg's speech, including the comment above, are quoted quite liberally in a post on the New York Observer's political blog The Politicker.

GOP STILL HAS STATE SENATE TO HANG ITS HAT ON

The state GOP's best bet at keeping a beachfront to work from is the state Senate, where it has held an advantage for decades despite voter enrollment that favors the Democrats. The New York Times has an analysis of the race for control of the Senate in today's editions.