Chris Collins Posted on 05/20/2009 11:15:31 PM PDT by neverdem
Chris Collins
NEW YORK Republicans are eyeing a dynamic but little- known upstate businessman and elected official to run for governor next year if Rudy Giuliani declines, The Post has learned.
GOP leaders say Erie County Executive Chris Collins, a wealthy, charismatic, conservative-oriented entrepreneur and government reformer is interested.
Collins, who won a surprising landslide victory in the heavily Democratic county in 2007, would make a great candidate, they say.
"He recently came to see me, and I came away sure he was interested in running for governor," former US Sen. Alfonse D'Amato told The Post.
"I think he'd be a very formidable candidate."
Former Assembly Minority Leader and 2006 GOP candidate for governor John Faso said Collins "would make an excellent candidate."
"He's a dynamic and impressive result-oriented businessman who got elected in a strongly Democratic county with one ballot line against a Democratic opponent who had five," Faso said.
Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) also recently described Collins as "a great candidate" for governor.
Giuliani is the GOP's first choice for the state's top slot, but the failed 2008 presidential contender has left party leaders skeptical about his willingness to run.
Many believe he'll run only against Gov. Paterson, whose dismal poll numbers have convinced top Democrats he'll defer to popular Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and not run next year.
*
Add US Sen. Charles Schumer to the long list of prominent Democratic officials refusing to support Paterson's call for the resignation of the members of the embattled state Public Integrity Commission.
Paterson sought the resignations last week in the wake of a scathing report from Inspector General Joseph Fisch that concluded Executive Director Herbert Teitelbaum and some commissioners were involved in, or aware of, the leaking of information on the Dirty Tricks Scandal...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Staten Island man used gun to reclaim false teeth from business associate, cops say
Official: Gitmo suspect to be sent to NY for trial
FBI, NYPD Arrest 4 in Alleged Plot to Bomb NY Synagogues
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Why do they all have to be little urban rich boys?
I read the NY Post just for the headlines.
In New York, the GOP is RINO to the core from DAmato on down.
DAmato is probably as conservative as New York Repubs ever got and the Dems took him out of the Senate for investigating the Clintons.
This “moderate” GOP businessman’s political appeal is that he is an outsider when compared to the insider Democrat political family Cuomo.
Thanks for the ping!
Pretty hard to run for office with no money. The Dems can because they steal or are backed by union but almost impossible for a Repub to run with no money.
My son is a cop in Brooklyn, NY...they just radioed him to run into a Synagogue there...things are crazy......
Chris Collins is a decent guy but this is a bunch of BS....
IF they are courting him it is ONLY because he has money, money to fund his own campaign and that’s it. He is not known out of this area and he ran on the fact that he is not a politician.
He is also trying to run things here in Erie County running his own candidates against some of us real reformers.
Like I said I like the guy personally but what has he done here? I think they are also trying to get a firm commitment out of Rudy.
New York Republicans = Moderate Democrats anywhere else.
New York Democrats = Eurosocialists.
Conservative Party = Pseudoconservative extortionists who give endorsements to above two parties for jobs in the respective administration.
Working Families Party = Marxist Leninists who usually endorse Democrats, which tells you all you need to know about New York Democrats.
A pretty good roundup of New York parties.
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