Republican governor hopefuls betting on reviving old ideas

Stop-and-frisk. Broken windows. Gas fracking, nuclear power and the death penalty.

The Republican candidates for governor, in their campaigns and their debate Monday, are turning back the clock to revive ideas that, in some cases, have been tried and discarded, or rejected, by New Yorkers over the years.

The candidates say some of these need a redo.

It’s a strategy designed to win voters in the June 28 Republican primary, analysts said Tuesday, while possibly leaving the winner vulnerable to attacks in a heavily “blue” state in the November general election.

“These are Republican candidates who are appealing to the small percentage of Republicans who will actually vote in two weeks,” said Steve Greenberg, spokesman for the Siena College poll. “They are using issues they believe will appeal to the base of their party that will dominate turnout in a primary — just like the other party.”

On Monday in their first debate of the campaign, the GOP candidates — Rob Astorino, Andrew Giuliani, Harry Wilson and Lee Zeldin — all called for rollbacks of various policies implemented by Democrats who control Albany, a course correction or reconsideration of sorts.

“This year is going to be revenge of the normal people,” Astorino said at one point.

In some instances, Republicans say the Democrats in power in New York erred by junking policies, such as “stop and frisk,” the police practice of detaining and searching a person, which raised constitutional and discrimination issues.

Some called for repealing the state’s strict prohibition against carrying concealed weapons.

On other issues, such as natural-gas drilling, they say New York erred when former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo banned it. The Republicans see gas exploration as a way to supplement energy supply.

Astorino, the former Westchester County executive, said the state should revive nuclear energy, saying the shuttering of old plants increased the state’s reliance on polluting fossil fuels.

Rep. Zeldin (R-Shirley), in his campaign, has called for bringing back the death penalty. The state’s top court declared the most recent capital punishment statute unconstitutional in 2004.

Thing is, some of these ideas went by the wayside because New Yorkers didn’t support them.

“The death penalty, absolutely, there is a certain amount of ‘Way Back Machine’ to that,” said Michael Dawidziak, a Long Island Republican strategist, referring to the time machine in the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.

But he said the other policies on crime and energy could be relevant in the 2022 campaigns when voters are concerned about both.

Drilling for natural gas could “hit a nerve” with voters concerned with gasoline and home heating oil prices, he said. Calling for a return of stop-and-frisk is about trying to make Democrats look soft on crime, he said.

“I don’t know if a Republican primary voter going make a decision on that,” Dawidziak said, adding: “But, clearly, it’s a good talking point in a general” election.

Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay (R-Pulaski) said reviving old ideas won’t hurt Republicans but could help. In his view, when Democrats swept the 2018 elections and took over all the levers of power in state government, “they took it too far,” especially on crime.

“Some of the stuff clearly was working,” Barclay said of previous criminal-justice policies while acknowledging some changes were needed. “So I think it’s totally right to bring up these issues because people think New York has moved in the wrong direction.”

Some of the campaign rhetoric the public is hearing now won’t survive past June 28. Traditionally, Greenberg pointed out, statewide candidates “move to the middle” following the party primaries. Some of the turn-back-the-clock ideas, while being emphasized now, might get dumped later along the campaign trail.

Said Greenberg: “The issues that appeal to Republican base are not the same issues that will appeal to the general electorate.”