Sparse Crowds Greet Lazio
Rick Lazio, on the road as the Republican Party's candidate in New York's Senate race, was greeted by sparse, but enthusiastic crowds Wednesday.
The Long Island congressman's "Mainstream Express" made stops in Syracuse, the Finger Lakes region, Elmira and in Binghamton, where about 250 people turned out to see the Republican who has replaced Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the Senate race.
"We're going to carry the day because New Yorkers are going to elect another New Yorker," Lazio told the Binghamton-area residents, stressing a favorite Republican theme - Hillary Rodham Clinton as carpetbagger.
"Being a New Yorker is more than moving into a multimillion dollar house and putting on a Yankee hat," the congressman added.
The attacks, some of Lazio's most stinging to date, came even though he pledged aboard his campaign bus to "take the high road."
Lazio, the unanimous pick of the GOP state convention Tuesday night, said he had given the bus its nickname "to reinforce my record in the House, which is a mainstream record, which is, I think, where the vast majority of New Yorkers are."
He is calling his race against Democratic nominee Clinton, "a struggle between somebody on the far left and somebody in the center."
For Lazio, 42, the GOP nomination marked the culmination of a dream that seemed dashed just nine months ago when Gov. George Pataki persuaded him to suspend his fledgling Senate campaign in favor of a run by Giuliani.
But when Giuliani pulled out of the race on May 19 to focus his energies on his battle with prostate cancer, Pataki and other state Republican leaders quickly rallied around Lazio.
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In his acceptance speech Tuesday, Lazio begged comparison to his "better financed and better known" Democratic rival.
He talked about growing up in New York and passing legislation aimed at solving New York problems, neither f which Clinton can claim.
After enduring almost two weeks of taunts from Lazio, Clinton finally fired back Wednesday, declaring that the Senate race "is not about who's from New York," but about the issues.
"This is about who will fight the right fights for all New Yorkers," the first lady said in a rousing speech during a rally at the Manhattan headquarters for the Carpenters Union, which endorsed her candidacy.
"While my opponent tells you where he's from, I tell you what I'm for," she added. "My opponent may be new, but the issues that New Yorkers care about remain the same."