Top state Republicans will urge former Mayor Rudy Giuli ani to abandon his interest in running for governor and run instead against unelected US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, The Post has learned.
The appeal, expected within a few weeks, comes in the wake of Giuliani’s embarrassing defeat in his effort to block Manhattan lawyer Ed Cox, ex-President Richard Nixon’s son-in-law, from becoming the state GOP chairman.
“I am picking up no support for Rudy for governor, but I’m hearing his name mentioned for US Senate,” one of the state’s most influential elected Republicans, a Cox supporter, told The Post.
State Republicans describe Giuliani’s chances against Gillibrand as excellent and say the statewide organization fielded by Cox to become party leader could become a powerful base for a Giuliani Senate race.
One GOP leader said Republicans were struck by “the poor quality of Rudy’s statewide political operation” as he backed Niagara County GOP Chairman Henry Wojtaszek against Cox.
“He has a terrible political organization: His people are nasty and vindictive — not a good combination — and I hear he’s pretty upset with the advice he got on all of this,” the Republican leader continued.
The GOP’s pitch to Giuliani is expected to include the claim that the party’s only hope for a resurgence in New York is to pick up several “secondary” statewide offices, such as senator and state comptroller, and not aim for the top spot, party insiders said.
Polls have repeatedly shown Giuliani, who ran a failed campaign for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2008, to be the Republicans’ strongest potential statewide contender for governor, crushing Gov. Paterson by substantial margins.
But GOP leaders have become convinced that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who polls show would defeat Giuliani, will be the Democrats’ candidate for governor next year.
“It makes so much sense for Rudy to run for the Senate and not try to go head-to-head with Cuomo,” said another prominent Republican.
“He’ll have an immediate national platform in the Senate. He can take the lead on homeland security and national defense and, depending on what conditions are in the country in 2012, he could run for president again.
“But if he ran for governor and won, he’d have to stick around Albany for at least four years and try to solve New York’s massive problems, which, frankly, everyone believes can’t be fixed,” the Republican continued.