Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
William F. Weld, born and raised in New York, lives here now.
Posted on 04/25/2005 10:23:42 PM PDT by neverdem
William F. Weld, a popular former governor of Massachusetts and prodigious fund-raiser, said yesterday that he was seriously considering running for governor of New York in 2006 if Gov. George E. Pataki and Rudolph W. Giuliani did not.
Mr. Weld, a moderate Republican, is relatively unknown to many New Yorkers, yet his multimillion-dollar fortune and his colorful personality would clearly be assets for such a race. He was born in New York City and raised on Long Island, and Republican leaders in New York have said they will welcome his candidacy if Mr. Pataki does not run again, but until yesterday Mr. Weld refused to discuss his intentions publicly.
In an interview yesterday, Mr. Weld was so confident of his political abilities that he even predicted that he stood a good chance of beating Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat and New York attorney general, who had a formidable lead over Mr. Pataki in recent polls.
"Eliot's making his name the same way I made mine, and he would be tough to beat," said Mr. Weld, a former federal prosecutor, as he spoke by phone from Louisville, Ky., where he was on a business trip for his private equity firm, Leeds Weld.
"But I think I could beat him, yes, it's possible," he said. "A year and a half is two eternities in politics."
Yet Mr. Weld emphasized that he would not definitively announce his intentions until after Mr. Pataki disclosed if he would seek a fourth term, which he is expected to do by June.
Mr. Weld, a friend of Mr. Pataki's, said that he hoped the governor did run again, yet at the same time he positioned himself as a kind of ideological heir apparent if Mr. Pataki does not seek re-election.
"I'm a huge fan of Governor Pataki - it's hard to get a piece of paper in between his ideology and mine," he said, noting that the two men are supporters of tax cuts, environmental protection, Medicaid reform, abortion rights and gay rights.
Mr. Weld becomes the second politician of national stature to express interest recently in running for office in the state. Earlier this month, Bob Kerrey, a Democratic former senator from Nebraska, mused about running for mayor of New York City, but ruled out such a bid days later.
For his part, Mr. Weld repeatedly noted that he was enthusiastic about the idea of running for governor if the circumstances proved right.
"Sam Houston is a pretty compelling historical figure, and it would be great to be in that company," Mr. Weld said, referring to the 19th-century political figure who was governor of two states, Tennessee and Texas. "I think being governor is a terrific job."
"I think I could run a good race in this state, being a native New Yorker and now a resident of the Upper East Side, Long Island, and with places in the Adirondacks and the Catskills," said Mr. Weld, who is 59 and moved back to New York in 2000. "I'm sure it would be hard when the time came, but I know I could do it. I know I have at least another race left in me."
Mr. Weld is known for being a curious political character: an avowed fan of the Grateful Dead, he also once drew headlines in Boston after diving into the Charles River to show that it was no longer the polluted waterway of the 1980's.
He gained a reputation around the Massachusetts State House for keeping banker's hours, often playing squash in the mornings, enjoying a good meal, and pursuing extracurricular interests that helped his national reputation, such as working as a chief fund-raiser in 1996 for the presidential campaign of Pete Wilson, the former California governor and another moderate Republican.
Yesterday, too, he showed a politically intriguing side as he offered kind words for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Public Enemy No. 1 for some New York Republicans. He essentially ruled out a run against her in 2006, noting that they have a relationship that began when they worked in the same office of staff lawyers for the Watergate hearings in the 1970's.
"She is a little bit to the left of me politically, but we are old friends," he said.
Mr. Weld's ambitions have been the stuff of low-level Republican conversation for months, but this week a magazine report suggested he was being viewed as a serious contender within the party.
"I've talked to some other people who I know, but this has not reached a crescendo in the last couple months at all," Mr. Weld said. "I don't have a team together, or any organization."
Beyond building a campaign apparatus, Mr. Weld would have to deal with New Yorkers' reaction to his patrician image, not to mention possible accusations that he is a carpetbagger.
But Mr. Weld said he could defend himself by noting that he was born in the city, raised in Smithtown, Long Island, and now owned three houses across the state (and used a fourth one, in Lewbeach in the Catskill Mountains that belongs to his wife, Leslie Marshall, a writer).
"There was a state where I did worry about that, and it was called Massachusetts," he said.
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
William F. Weld, born and raised in New York, lives here now.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Doesn't he have a real job yet?
Howie Carr has already started having fun with this...
He's buddies with the mobbed-up Bulger family.
I vaguely recall a piece about his grandmother, iirc. She had some nice property on LI, and was a Republican.
The Dems that controlled the town were going to use emminent domain to punish her, and she managed to turn the
property in to a state or federal park, or somesuch.
NY: Official State of Carpetbaggers for 5 Years Running
Oh, the FUTURE of the GOP! You dumb conservatives surely remember this electoral powerhouse and sure 2000 presidential frontrunner, don't you?
And, Lynn Martin. She was going to lead us out of the wilderness too.....
Long Live Retarded Rinos!
Oh, before then, too--Bobby Kennedy, elected to Senate in '64. (His opponent, incumbent Kenneth Keating, "sought to picture him as a carpetbagger")
Bostonians remember impressionist Jim Flaherty who used to appear on Jerry Williams' show: "Weld's world! Weld's world! Party time, excellent!"
Do you remember--
--his fondness for the Grateful Dead
--him fainting at a college graduation
--those books he wrote, "Mackerel by Moonlight" and "The Big Ugly" (actually got some good write-ups on amazon.com)
--when asked about whether or not Republican consultant Ron Kaufman may have been drinking, Weld replied, as only he could, "I did see him nursing an amber-colored liquid"
Well, he did eliminate the car registration fees for a couple years (they came back). I'll give him that.
Hittlery is only a little bit to the left of this A hole. Why would anyone want this hack as governor?
I think he's being generous to an old colleague. Compared to Rudy or G. Pataki, I don't think he's worse than them. The prospect of Spitzer is absolutely miserable.
Elliot Spitzer might be good for New York. People might finally get tired of liberal extremism and revolt. How many more taxes can be raised in New York?
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