Topic category:  Elections - Politics, Polling, etc.

When Republican presidential nominee in waiting Mitt Romney was asked to pick one word to describe himself, he picked a great one--resolute.

There's no question that the word applied to Wendy Long, already the New York Conservative Party's nominee for United States Senator and the near majority winner in a three-way race with George Maragos and Bob Turner at the New York Republican Convention last March.

All three had at least 25% of the vote and thus qualified to participate in a primary with submitting petition signatures, Long, easily, each of the men, barely.

When Long, the only woman seeking a United States Senate nomination ever to win a New York Republican Convention, won the Conservative Party nomination a few days late, with 91% of the vote, and then watched her nomination made unanimous, the gracious thing for Maragos and Turner to do was to pass up the primary, since the primary wastes limited resources and if either of them managed to win, the real winner would be Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Gillibrand, the most liberal of the 100 United States Senators, would love to run in a three-way race and avoid one-on-one debates with Long.

After losing to Long twice, these men want a third try. In a year when Team Obama has been charging that Republicans are conducting a "War on Women," the quality that Maragos and Turner exhibited in continuing to run is either arrogance or stupidity, not resoluteness, or smartness, or graciousness.

Both President Obama and especially Senator Gillibrand should be very grateful to them!

Those who think that there is a simple solution--Long should give up the Conservative Party nomination and run somewhere for a judgeship in order to do it, if either Maragos or Turner edges her in the Republican primary--are oblivious to the reality that such a cynical solution plays into the hands of the Democrats led by President Obama and Gillibrand claiming that there's a Republican "War on Women."

New York Republicans have nominated women to run for Lieutenant Governor, but never for Governor or United States Senator.

Hillary Clinton broke the "glass ceiling" for New York Democrats and Gillibrand succeeded her.

New York is still waiting for Republicans to nominate a woman. When the woman in a three-way race is not only best qualified by character, education, experience and intelligence, but already nominated by the Conservative Party despite the best efforts of Maragos and Turner, there's no reasonable justification for nominating either of them.

During the course of her career, Long served on the staff of two U.S. Senators after graduating from college and clerked for both a U.S. Court of Appeals Judge and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Clarence Thomas) after graduating from law school. She left a lucrative private law practice to help found the Judicial Confirmation Network and was significant in the successful efforts to confirm both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. She is much better prepared to serve as a United States Senator than either of her male rivals, each of whom turned to elective politics after successful business careers and is serving his first term in elective office. Turner, 71, made it tot the House of Representatives last September, on his second try, and Maragos has no federal experience.

On June 26, Republican voters should mitigate the damage caused by Maragos and Turner by making Long, a registered Republican, the nominee of both the Republican and Conservative Parties.

The wisdom of that seems apparent. Not only Ambassador John Bolton, Steve Forbes and Grover Norquist, but New York State Senator Michael F. Nozzolio, State Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb and State Assemblymen Bob Oaks and Gary Finch endorsed Long for U.S. Senate. Citing her “commonsense conservative Republican principles” the State Legislators called on Republicans to vote for Wendy Long in the June 26th GOP Primary.

State Senator Nozzolio: “...I am proud to endorse Wendy Long for United States Senate. Wendy Long’s record of accomplishments make her uniquely qualified for the job and her commonsense conservative Republican principles are what our State and Nation both need in these challenging times.”

State Assembly Minority Leader Kolb: “Wendy Long understands that if we are to rebuild our economy, we must first rein in wasteful spending so that we can cut deficits and reduce taxes so that small businesses can expand and create jobs. She has the commitment and vision to restore the opportunities New York and America so desperately need.”

State Assemblyman Oaks: “Wendy Long shares our upstate New York values; in the U.S. Senate, she’ll fight to preserve our 2nd Amendment rights and will defend the liberties that are attacked in Washington on a near daily basis. Wendy Long will make a great U.S. Senator and I hope all Republicans will vote for her in the June 26th GOP Primary.”

State Assemblyman Finch: “I wholeheartedly support Wendy Long’s nomination for U.S. Senate and encourage everyone to support her on June 26th . She has the experience, the expertise and the commitment to help change the direction of our State and Nation.”

By email former Assembly leader and Republican gubernatorial nominee John Faso called Long “someone you may not yet know but, who has the potential to excite our grassroots Republican base and at the same time attract women and disaffected ‘Reagan Democrats’ to the GOP line.”

“In a year when Democrats claim that there is a ‘war on women’, who better to take on Kirsten Gillibrand than a qualified Republican woman who has the brains and the moxie needed to carry the debate,” Faso continued.

The answer is no one, certainly not Maragos or Turner.

Because, as Faso put it, Long "presents the best contrast with Senator Gillibrand and will be a boost to Republican office seekers statewide.”

Long's June 8 press release on on President Obama’s Statement on the Economy illustrates why Long is best qualified and Gillibrand wants a three-way race.

“One sentence from President Obama’s statement crystalizes the fundamental philosophical difference between the Obama - Gillibrand prescription for economic growth and the conservative Republican policies that I support: ‘State and local government hiring is going in the wrong direction.'

“The belief that government hiring is the answer to economic stagnation and recession is symptomatic of a larger view that supports the radical intrusion of the federal government into every aspect of our lives. We have employment stagnation precisely because the businesses that are the lifeblood of our economy are too worried about future tax increases and Obamacare to add necessary jobs.

“The fact is, now that we are entering yet another failed 'Recovery Summer,' the federal well has run dry, and the Obama-Gillibrand phony stimulus that propped up state and local public employees for the past few years has run out. Today, state and local governments are finally being forced to make the tough decisions that many have put off because of the false promise by President Obama and Senator Gillibrand that public spending can lift our economy. It’s a false promise made by liberal politicians who are captive to public sector union interests.

“This November, I plan to offer New Yorkers a clear choice between a belief in smaller government, lower taxes, and a less intrusive government as a real economic stimulus for the private sector, versus the failed Obama-Gillibrand special-interest motivated, nanny state-government-does-all approach.”

Making it resolute Wendy Long, one-on-one with Senator Etch-a-Sketch on Election Day 2012, is the smart way for New York Republicans to go.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.