Lazio cites lessons learned from Senate campaign

A decade later, Rick Lazio can laugh about the most memorable, but painful moment from his last campaign.

During a televised 2000 Senate race debate against Hillary Rodham Clinton, Lazio grabbed a petition against so-called soft money contributions, walked from his podium toward Clinton and demanded she sign it.

In an instant, Lazio's opponents were able to portray the Republican congressman from Brightwaters - known for his amiable manner and moderate politics - as an intemperate bully confronting the first lady of the United States.

"The most important lesson is . . . stay at the podium!" Lazio chuckled when asked about the key lesson from that race.

In his new battle to become governor, Lazio is again trying to balance a nice-guy image with his attempts to tackle controversial issues - part of a career that has stretched from a low-paid Suffolk prosecutor, to a four-term congressman overhauling the nation's banking system, to a Wall Street executive who made more than $8 million in the past decade.

Lazio, now 52, said his loss to Clinton and his time away from elective office has given him a perspective that will make him a better governor than his opponents for the Republican gubernatorial nomination - Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino and Manhattan businessman Myers Mermel - and, if he succeeds, than the Democratic candidate, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

"Having made mistakes, you pledge yourself never to make mistakes again - not just during the campaign but in terms of service," said Lazio. Because he learned to overcome adversity after the Clinton defeat, Lazio said, he'll be "a tougher, more focused, wiser leader." Many top Republican leaders, including Nassau Republican chair Joseph Mondello, have lined up behind him.

But critics say Lazio's lack of toughness and focus already in this race led to a weak showing, with only $640,000 reported in his campaign coffers last January, and the defection of both the state GOP chair Ed Cox and Suffolk GOP chair John Jay LaValle, who once supported him but now back Levy. Paladino and Levy also point to Lazio's close alliance with Wall Street as a bad omen among voters angry with corporate scandals and government bailouts of banks.

"He's far too cozy with Wall Street in an era when there's a cloud over the financial services industry," said Paladino's campaign spokesman Michael Caputo. "He can't attack Cuomo on anything about Wall Street when he's vulnerable to the same charge."

Lazio's road to Congress and Wall Street began in Suffolk County, where his father, Tony, worked as political aide to then-Suffolk GOP leader Edwin M. "Buzz" Schwenk, putting together the party's galas at the old Colonie Hill catering hall. On election night, young Rick could be seen up at the tote board, helping to write in chalk the latest returns.

The grandson of a janitor and a bricklayer, Lazio went to West Islip High, attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie and earned a law degree from American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. In law school, he met his future wife, Patricia Moriarty, then a nursing student.

By 1985, Lazio entered public life as a Suffolk prosecutor, working for then-District Attorney Patrick Henry. Though Lazio handled several criminal cases, he showed an affinity for administrative responsibilities as well, said Henry. "He was a very bright young man and an excellent administrator," recalled Henry, who knew Lazio's father.

Touted as a rising star, Lazio got elected to the Suffolk County Legislature in 1989, and three years later took on the seemingly impossible task of challenging then-Rep. Thomas J. Downey, a Democrat first elected in 1974. But Downey, a favorite of national Democrats such as Al Gore, was plagued by a recession and wound up losing his 1992 race against Lazio in a big upset. "I didn't think I'd lose to him and didn't think he was a strong candidate," Downey recalled.

In Congress, Lazio championed a number of causes, including the fight against breast cancer and improvements in care for the disabled, and became assistant majority leader in the House. Most notably, Lazio wound up on the House Banking and Financial Services Committee, helping to push through a repeal of the Depression-era Glass Steagall Act, resulting in the removal of many protections between commercial and investment banks.

"Make no mistake, the positive impact . . . will stretch from Wall Street to Main Street, from the cradle to the wedding to retirement," Lazio predicted about the new measure, called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill. Since then, however, many financial experts, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, have partly blamed the nation's recent banking collapse and the need for a huge government bailout on that 1999 law.

Lazio spokesman Barney Keller points out that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, was "passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support, including every single Republican member of New York's congressional delegation." He said it was unfair to blame Lazio for the nation's recent banking crisis.

In 2000, when then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped out of an expected Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton, Lazio became the Republican candidate, launching a shorten but well-funded $40 million campaign against the nation's then-first lady. On Election Day, Lazio pointed out, he carried 49 of New York State's 62 counties but "it wasn't enough," losing by 55 percent to 42 percent.

Many considered Lazio, stung by his gaffe during the television debate with Clinton, to be finished in politics.

Lazio went to work as head of the Financial Services Forum, then a New York-based lobbying group funded by Wall Street executives and, in late 2004, he joined JPMorgan Chase, the giant banking firm, as a lobbyist and executive.

Federal records show Lazio lobbied on a number of financial issues for JPMorgan, including domestic and international monetary policy with his old House banking subcommittee. Since leaving Congress, Lazio earned more than $8 million, including a $1.3 million bonus in 2008 from JPMorgan, from which he is now on leave, his aides said.

Lazio's political opponents, such as Levy, say voters are angry at Wall Street and unlikely to support a candidate so closely linked to big banks. But Lazio declared, "I'm no apologist for the wrongdoing that has occurred by some on Wall Street," and said now-defunct firms such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers "got the capitalist death penalty and that's entirely appropriate - you take risk, you pay the price."

Instead, Lazio said his blend of public- and private-sector experience will help pull New York out of its $9 billion deficit and help attract new jobs to the state. Lazio is running for governor intent on the "confronting the demons that are facing New York," he explained. "We have a serious crisis on our hands - a crisis of confidence, a crisis of leadership and a fiscal crisis - and all three of these things have to be confronted in the first few months of my administration."