Thanks so much for the update. I had forgotten most of those details (thank God!) Ed Cox - another GOPe/Rino loser! What a mess NY is.
Correction, the party chair at the time and big Weld booster was the late Stephen Minarik (not Cox). He ultimately got Weld to see the writing on the wall and drop out.
Cox himself wanted to run for Governor in 2006 but shifted to running for Senator against Hillary, though dropped out in favor of Jeanine Pirro (who in turn also dropped out and ran for AG instead).