ALBANY – With their majority hinging on a single seat after losing a crucial upstate special election, defiant Senate Republicans yesterday vowed to cling to power and vehemently denied that some GOPers are ready to flip to the Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and his members met behind closed doors for more than hour to discuss how the party could lose an election in a district that has been represented by the GOP since at least the 1880s and where Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 30,000.
“We lost that battle, but we are going to win the war,” Bruno said, pointing to the November elections. “We are going out of here as a unified conference.”
Bruno said it is important for Republicans to maintain control of the Senate to prevent Spitzer and the Democrats from taking over Albany.
GOP senators publicly said that Democrat Darrel Aubertine won over Republican Will Barclay because of his popularity in the district. But privately, the Republicans discussed a need to “modernize” a political operation – perhaps by firing several of their chief political operatives – that has lost seven seats in recent years.
Senators were particularly disappointed with the work of longtime Senate Republican Campaign Committee Executive Director Ed Lurie and the GOP ad team, sources said.
“We are in the 21st century and the operation has to be in the 21st century,” one senator told The Post.
Democrats, who already hold the governor’s mansion, the state Assembly and every statewide elected office, are looking to seize control of the Senate for the first time since holding it for a year in 1965.
Republicans now hold 32 seats and Democrats have 30.
If one Republican switched to the Democrats or if one seat changes hands in the November elections, the parties will hold an equal number of seats. Democrats, however, would effectively take control because Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, serves as the Senate president and would vote with the Democrats to break the tie.
Unlike last year, when an energized Spitzer and Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith openly talked of taking over the Senate before the elections by flipping Republicans to their side, Democrats took a more muted approach after their big victory Tuesday.
“The victory for us in a district that was the largest Republican district in the state of New York gives us a reason to be a little bit confident,” Smith said.
Spitzer and Smith both denied they are trying to work the Republican side to turn the Senate over to Democrats before the November elections.
Two Republican senators often mentioned as possible flippers – John Bonacic of Orange County and Joseph Robach of Rochester – insisted they have no plans to switch sides, though Bonacic raised eyebrows when he was seen entering the Democratic conference room to congratulate Aubertine after he was sworn in yesterday.
Senate Democrats are targeting at least five Republicans in the fall elections – Robach, Caesar Trunzo and Kemp Hannon of Long Island, and Serphin Maltese and Frank Padavan of Queens.