Michael R. Long, devout thinker who led New York State’s Conservative Party for three decades – the organization in 1994 delivered winning profits to the only Republican elected president Governor for the past 50 years – passed away Sunday at his home in Breezy Point, Queens. He was 82 years old.
The cause was kidney failure, said his patron and successor, the state party’s president, Gerard Kassar.
Mr. Long is a staunch opponent of abortion rights, gay rights, same-sex marriage and higher taxes to pay for more government spending, but he is generally respected by political opponents and I even like it for being a principled person. consistently, has won their trust.
He was the longest-serving chairman of the state Conservative Party, from 1988 to early 2019, after leading the party’s organization in Brooklyn.
He also served as a major city councilman in Brooklyn from 1981 to 1983, when countywide office was abolished. He is the only Council member elected as a Conservative.
In November 1994, George E. Pataki, a Republican senator, overthrew the Liberal Democratic Governor. Mario M. Cuomo, who is seeking a fourth term, by drawing more than 300,000 votes on the Conservative Party ballot. At the time, a Republican had not been elected governor since 1970, when Nelson A. Rockefeller won a fourth term, and no Republican has won that office since. Mr. Pataki was elected to a third term in 2002.
Its endorsement was a gamble: The party chose to oppose Mr. Pataki’s relatively permissive views on abortion and gay rights, but Mr. Pataki announced tax cuts and provided security appointments. state government support for the Conservatives, giving them greater influence over spending and other policies.
“Without his support, I would never have been elected governor,” Pataki said Monday.
Michael Robert Long was born on February 1, 1940, in Brooklyn to Michael T. Long, who had worked at various times for the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Stock Exchange, and Elmira (Nuetzel) Long, director of Blue Cross Blue Shield inspector.
He grew up in Queens, where he dropped out of Richmond Hill High School shortly before graduating in 1959 to join the Marines.
“I was just such a child,” said Mr. Long The New York Times in 1999. “There was a time when they talked about kicking me out of school. And then I put my name on the list. “
“I’m just the opposite,” he added. “So I guess I’ve been contrarian all my life.”
He served in the Marines until 1961. In 1963, he married Eileen Dougherty. She survived him along with their sons, Michael, Matthew, James, Robert, Christopher, Francis and Edward; two daughters, Eileen Chelales and Maureen Hayes; 24 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
The New York Conservative Party was founded in the 1960s by J. Daniel Mahoney and Kieran O’Doherty, Wall Street lawyers and brother-in-law who sought to tilt the state’s Republican party to the right. Accordingly, they follow the model of the Liberal Party, which will use the endorsement of Democratic candidates – sometimes delivering odds of victory in close races – to propel them towards the right. left side (and patronage exactly when they were elected).
Mr. Long, who runs a liquor store with his brother in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where he lives, is a distinct political leader: He’s politically savvy, able to stand his ground. in any debate, but unlike many other standards. politician, he is passionately devoted to causes and is not willing to make transaction confirmations.
In 1964, he volunteered to work on the Republican presidential campaign in Barry Goldwater and registered as a Conservative voter.
The New York Party enjoyed a stunning and unparalleled success in 1970 when James L. Buckley, brother of William F. Buckley Jr., was elected U.S. senator in a three-way race. rigid. He remains the only Conservative candidate to win the statewide race without a Republican nomination.
In 1980, Conservative support helped Alfonse M. D’Amato defeat the incumbent senator, Jacob K. Javits – the last of the original Rockefeller Republicans – in the party’s primary election. Republic, which resulted in Mr. Javits being deposed in November of that year.
Mr. Long was elected Conservative Party leader in his Brooklyn borough in 1968 and was president of Kings County four years later, serving until 1988. In 1974, he was selected as state vice president.
Despite Mr. Pataki’s endorsement in 1994, in 1997 he refused to endorse Rudolph W. Giuliani’s re-election campaign for mayor of New York City because of the mayor’s liberal views on political issues. Social Issues. Instead, he left the Conservative ballot box blank and said he did not vote in the election. (In 1989, when Mr. Giuliani had barely lost the mayor job to David N. Dinkins, and in 1993, when Mr. Giuliani had narrowly defeated Mr. Dinkins, the Conservatives had put forward their own candidates. me.)
When the State Legislature passed the Marriage Equality Act in 2010, Mr. Long announced that no candidate in favor of same-sex marriage would be allowed to run for the Conservative Party line.
His political counterparts fiercely contested his ideological arguments, but generally respected his consistency in an age of fluctuating and extravagant.
“There is something almost new about it, although I completely disagree with him,” said Judith Hope, former chair of the state Democratic Party, said in 1999. “It’s rare to see what seems to be a principled stance from a party.”
In 1990, the Conservative Party almost became what Mr. Long considered a typical political party.
When the Conservative Party candidate for governor, Herbert Londoncampaigned actively against the Republican candidate, Pierre A. Rinfretas it did with the incumbent Democrat Mr. Cuomo, Mr. London garnered more than 800,000 votes, or 20 percent of the total, almost overtaking Mr. Rinfret.
“That’s a bit scary” Mr. Long said at. If Mr London defeats Mr Rinfret, the Conservatives will knock the Republicans out of second place in the state vote in four years and, Mr Long insists, “there will be a lot of people changing their registrations. , and you’ll have watched other players try to take over the party. “
“It will completely become a political party and lose sight,” he said.
He added, “We have always understood that the Conservative Party is a philosophical movement, rather than a political party.”
