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Mostly Cloudy Rick Lazio makes campaign stop on L.I.
Republican gubernatorial candidate says he's ready for Sept. 14 primary
After losing to Democrat Hilary Clinton in the 2000 U.S. Senate race, former Republican congressman Rick Lazio said he thought his political career was over. He returned to a quieter life working in the private sector. Now, though, Lazio is seeking to become the next GOP candidate for New York state governor. But first he must win a tough primary race on Sept. 14, with Carl Paladino, a wealthy Buffalo businessman, as his rival.
In polls conducted last Thursday among Republican voters who said they were likely to vote in the primary, Lazio led Paladino by 12 percentage points -- 47 to 35 percent.
Lazio appeared at the Massapequa Diner on Sunrise Highway last week, and discussed some of the reasons why he decided to return to politics and pursue the governor's mansion.
"This is clearly the most difficult period of time in New York state's recent history," Lazio said. "We've got enormous budget deficits, the public has lost faith in government, and 85 percent of people believe that the New York state government is dysfunctional. We're losing jobs, people and businesses."
Lazio said two of the primary reasons he decided to run were the political scandal and subsequent resignation of former governor Eliot Spitzer, along with his disappointment in the current governor, David Paterson. "I quickly realized that he wasn't following through with what he was saying," Lazio said.
But the main catalyst that brought Lazio back into politics, he said, came when he was driving with his daughter Molly while looking at colleges. "I started thinking," he said, "maybe she'll feel like she has to leave because she can't afford to live here...And I thought, If I'm thinking about that, then there have to be hundreds of thousands of other families in New York that are thinking the same thing, and certainly on Long Island."
Born in Amityville, Lazio eventually moved to West Islip, where he graduated from West Islip High School. He now resides in Brightwaters, a village in the southwest part of the Town of Islip.
