Tonight, the nation’s most successful third party, the Conservative Party of New York, celebrate its 50th anniversary with a gala dinner at the Sheraton in Manhattan.
Brothers-in-law J. Daniel Mahoney and Kieran O’Doherty founded the party in 1962 to counter liberal Nelson Rockefeller’s domination of the state’s Republican organization. It proceeded to do so — and then some.
After the 1964 Goldwater debacle, the Conservative Party’s success showed that conservatism was far from dead. Its 1965 mayoral candidate, William F. Buckley Jr., won an astonishing 341,000 votes — not only proving that conservatives mattered in the most left-wing city in America, but also helping the movement regain respect nationwide.
In 1966, gubernatorial nominee Dr. Paul Adams knocked the socks off the establishment when he outpolled Liberal Party candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. — 510,000 votes vs. 507,000 — and won the coveted Row C on state voting machines.
The party reached its apex when James L. Buckley (brother of Bill) won election to the US Senate in 1970 on the Conservative line with 2.2 million votes. Over the years, conservatives also provided the margins of victory for House candidates such as Buffalo’s Jack Kemp, as well as countless state officials.
Jim Buckley’s victory cemented, for a time, an electoral coalition of urban, ethnic Democrats with rural and suburban Republicans — all disgusted with excessive taxation, runaway government spending and the decline of traditional values. In 1980, the Conservative Party provided the margin of victory in Al D’Amato’s upset 1980 US Senate victory.
And, of course, it has helped the GOP maintain its majority in the state Senate, even as New York has turned an ever-deeper blue over the last half century.
Perhaps most important, it forced the state Republican Party to (sometimes) remember what it stood for — by threatening its power. In the 1990 race for governor, Conservative nominee Herbert London came within 38,000 votes of outpolling haplessly liberal GOP candidate Pierre Rinfret.
That wake-up call prompted humbled New York Republicans to work to team up with the Conservative Party to end the Mario Cuomo era. In ’94, Conservatives provided the margin of victory that swept George Pataki into the governor’s mansion.
The party’s mission had been fulfilled: A Republican governor was elected who was not a legatee of Rockefellerism.
Yes, Pataki proved a grave disappointment after his first few years in office, moving sharply left on social issues, as well as spending and taxation. Lesson learned for next time.
The party remains a force: In 2010, it won its biggest gubernatorial vote since 1994 — 272,000 votes vs. 154,000 on the line of the leftist Working Families Party.
And four Republican state senators who voted to legalize same-sex marriage are paying the price. Mike Long, the Conservatives’ leader since 1988, had warned they wouldn’t get the party’s endorsement, and he’s stuck by his word. As a result, one has decided not to seek another term and the others are likely losers this fall.
Ronald Reagan once stated, “The Conservative Party has established itself as a pre-eminent force in New York politics and an important part of our political history.” It is my hope the next generation of party leaders heeds those words and continues to be the guardians of working-class New Yorkers.
George J. Marlin, the Conservative Party’s 1993 mayoral candidate, is the author of
“Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party.”