New York's Republican and Conservative parties convened over the last few days to pick their challenger to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand this year.
At the GOP convention in Rochester over the weekend, Manhattan attorney Wendy Long was the clear favorite, but will face a primary in June.
Long got 47 percent of the weighted vote, followed by Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos with 27 percent and Rep. Bob Turner, special-election winner in September of NY-9, Anthony Weiner's former district, with 25 percent (just enough to avoid having to petition to get on the primary ballot).
At the Conservative meeting in NYC today, Long was the unanimous choice, because she is clearly more conservative than the others, especially on the social issues that appeal to the GOP base and the old Catholic guys running the Conservative Party, but no one else.
For example, Long believes that Roe v. Wade was "a horrible decision," and that "nobody would even notice" if it were overturned.
But while Long would be a tasty sacrificial lamb in November, she may not get there.
Why, below.
Unlike Long and Maragos, Turner has actually won a federal election. He only got into the race just last week, when it became clear that he would have a difficult time getting back to Congress after redistricting.
Though Long is plenty conservative, Turner will apparently have the support of the state's largest conservative newspaper, the Murdoch money-pit New York Post.
The Post campaigned in its news and editorial pages for Turner in the special, and its state editor Fred Dicker has been extraordinarily dismissive of Long on his WGDJ-AM radio show (podcasts here).
Here's some of what Dicker said about Long last week:
A woman from New Hampshire, Wendy Long, has already wrapped up the Conservative Party's backing, if ever there was a formula for throwing in the towel on taking on Kirsten Gillibrand, that's it.
What's going on here, when the Republicans and the Conservatives could have a terrific, probably their best candidate, to run against Kirsten Gillibrand and the Conservative Party seems to be putting a knife into Bob Turner.
snip
(To his guest, Politico reporter and former Postie Gregg Birnbaum) Had you ever heard of Wendy Long, do you know anything about her?
GB: I have not, Fred.
FD: Neither has anybody else.
And Dicker piled on today:
The Republican Party, such as it is, held a bizarre nominating convention Friday which is all over the map, three people running in a primary, dividing the vote, eating up the money.
And the candidate who right now looks like is certain to be the Conservative Party candidate, Wendy Long who is from New Hampshire, has a presence at that convention that is hard to understand.
snip
(In an interview with veteran NY GOP Brendan Quinn) What do you make of the fact that here you have a guy like Bob Turner, a Congressman, a proven vote-getter in a heavily Democratic district, not even endorsed by the party leader, desperately trying to become the nominee to run against Kirsten Gillibrand, when in fact it looks like a person I had never heard of until a few months ago, Wendy Long who's from New Hampshire, is going to be the nominee?
snip
I haven't heard anything about what Wendy Long has done in New York, she's from New Hampshire, I gather, that would warrant her being taken seriously as a candidate for U.S. Senate.
Ouch!
Dicker is, by far, the most influential conservative journalist in NYS.
And he would prefer someone who's won a highly publicized Congressional special election in the city that the Post invested in to an unknown from New Hampshire.
Maragos, who's been campaigning several times longer than Long and Turner combined, is rightly considered a regional candidate with little appeal/name recognition outside Nassau County.
But Turner is largely unknown outside of southern Brooklyn, where a few anti-marriage equality rabbis got him into Congress in the special, after he had been landslided by Weiner in 2010.
And Long is unknown outside her family and the far-right legal circles she's worked in most of her life.
NY Republicans had their best chance to defeat Gillibrand last year, in her first statewide election. None of the notional A-listers (Giuliani, Pataki, King) were interested, the spring convention put two no-names on the ballot, and another no-name petitioned to get on the primary ballot, and won.
Only to lose by about 2-1 in November, in the tea party wave year.
IMHO, Turner would be the stronger GOP candidate this year, because Long is really Wingnut Wendy, with limited appeal outside the 27 percent.
But Turner on his best day would be lucky to lose by 10 percent to the excellent Kirsten Gillibrand.