Twelve years ago, when they gathered at their state convention, Republicans were so hungry to retake the governorship that party bosses led by Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato brokered a deal to spare George E. Pataki a primary against his fiercest opponent.
But when the Republicans met here on Thursday to choose a new candidate for governor, the party found itself dispirited and deeply divided. Last-minute efforts by Governor Pataki, a lame duck, and other party leaders to avoid a potentially damaging primary fell apart. And the leadership's favored candidate for governor, William F. Weld, finished a distant second, earning a spot on the primary ballot but failing in his bid to be the party's designee.
It was a largely gloomy gathering, except for the rambunctious partisans of John Faso, a former assemblyman who pulled off an upset when he became the party's designee with 61 percent of the vote. If the Democrats seemed to taste victory at their gathering in Buffalo earlier this week and let their excitement spill over at their many breakfasts and receptions and parties, many Republicans here said privately that they feared their 12-year run of good fortune was coming to an end. Empty chairs pocked many of their events.
Many Republicans, from state senators to consultants to county chairmen to a former Pataki administration official, said privately that some of the blame lay with Governor Pataki. They used phrases like "train wreck" to describe the party and "lack of leadership" to describe the governor's stewardship of it. Anthony Scannapieco Jr., the Republican chairman of Putnam County, where the governor lives, lamented: "The governor lay back for a long time. I don't know where his thoughts were, maybe they were in Washington, but he lay back for a long time."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/nyregion/02repubs.html?hp&ex=1149220800&en=3ada13239c1d9515&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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