Bill Weld (R-MA..I mean NY) For Senate?

[Lunar]

State GOP Chairman Ed Cox is still shopping for a potential challenger to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and has approached former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld to see if he'd be interesting in running, according to a source familiar with the chairman's efforts.

According to this source, Cox has been making calls to major state Republican Party donors to inform them that he has reached out to Weld and also to former Rep. Jim Walsh to gauge their respective interest in taking on the Democratic junior senator.

UPDATE: State GOP spokesman Alex Carey denies this, insisting neither Cox nor anyone from the state committee has approached Weld or Walsh and asked them to run, though the chairman "holds them both in high esteem."

The idea that Cox would try to lure Weld, who was out-maneuvered in the fight for the GOP line in the 2006 governor's race by none other than Cox ally John Faso is really kind of strange.

Then again, Weld, who is now a partner at McDermott, Will & Emery, has a moderate Republican ideology similar to former Gov. George Pataki's.

Pataki, who has not yet formally ruled out a challenge to Gillibrand, but is widely expected not to run, is the only Republican leading her in public opinion polls.

Walsh, who retired from Congress (NY-25) at the end of 2009 and has since become a lobbyist, is also a moderate Republican.

Cox has undertaken this effort in spite of the fact that three mid-level Republicans have already announced their intention to run against Gillibrand - former Port Authority commissioner Bruce Blakeman, former Rep. Joe DioGuardi and economist David Malpass.

The chairman has been shopping around for a bigger name challenger to Gillibrand for some time now, but has been rebuffed at every turn. He struck out with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, DN publisher Mort Zuckerman and Bush II advisor Dan Senor.

Cox is even reportedly still trying to push former Rep. Rick Lazio out of the governor's race and into a fight against Gillibrand. Lazio, who is already infuriated by Cox's decision to back Democrat-turned-Republican Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy against him in a GOP primary, has shown zero interest in switching races.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2010/03/bill-weld-for-senate.html#ixzz0jnaHIkKJ

[© tweed]

NY GOP is fun to watch

[The Mikado]

Bill Weld is a Republican? 

[Lunar]

NY GOP is fun to watch

Lately, for sure. 

[redcommander]

Weld would be a top tier challenger for them if they convinced him to run. That would be an interesting race between him and Gillibrand.

[Lunar]

Weld would be a top tier challenger for them if they convinced him to run. That would be an interesting race between him and Gillibrand.

FYI "top tier" usually means >0.01% name recognition.

Weren't you the guy that called Dan Senor a "top-tier" challenger too?  The guy who is only really notable because he's married to a second-tier (!) cable news personality?  Or was that someone else?

Either way, whoever you one or two people are, you need to reevaluate what "top-tier" traditionally means in terms of candidates.  John Hoeven, Mike Castle, Mark Kirk, they're all top tier.  Pataki, Giuliani, they would be "top-tier" ... if Bill Weld, a governor from another state that left it just go to make a bunch of money in Manhattan, is "top tier" what is Pataki?

Please, Weld would be somewhere between second and third tier.  The fact that he's considering the race is barely news, I only posted it here because it's hilarious.

[Хahar 🤔]

yes yes YES

[Sam Spade]

Weld?  Might have to go third-party on that one.

Has nothing to do with "moderate" label or nothing - he's an idiot, that's all...

[Lunar]

I feel pretty confident that Joe DioGuardi will be the sacrificial lamb against Gillibrand fwiw.

Yesterday he racked up basically the endorsements of a LOT of populous conservative county chairmen (Suffolk, Westchester, some of the boroughs, Albany, etc.).


But the current GOP Chairman is Ed Cox, and he's pretty much in his own universe as far as I can tell, and he's still shopping around for senatorial candidates.  He's the guy that sparked the GOP internal war over Levy-Lazio.  Personally, I can't tell if Cox knows what he's doing or not.  Backing Levy I think was possibly a crazy smart move that will either destroy him (likely) or mark him as a genius (less likely).

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Didn't he endorse Obama for president in 2008?

...lol.

[Lief 🗽]

If you're gonna get a Massachusettser to carpetbag over to NY, why settle for a zero like Bill Weld when you can go with someone awesome like SCOTT BROWN.

[Lunar]

Didn't he endorse Obama for president in 2008?

...lol.

Well, the NY GOP is currently trying to recruit someone who was a Democrat in early 2010 for the governor's race, so there you go

[Lunar]

If you're gonna get a Massachusettser to carpetbag over to NY, why settle for a zero like Bill Weld when you can go with someone awesome like SCOTT BROWN.

haha, actually you gotta be a resident of a state to run for Senate (you don't have to live in your own congressional district for House races though)