Before speaking at the Republican One Hundred Thousand Club of Oneida County Luncheon in Utica this afternoon, Republican Gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio was asked how he’d fare one-on-one against Andrew Cuomo in the November election, should Lazio win the GOP nomination.

Lazio suggested Cuomo’s appeal reflected in the polls can be traced back to his father’s popularity, and believes he would be evenly matched with Cuomo in the general election.

“My dad wasn’t governor when I was growing up. My dad had a little auto parts store. So fundamentally about two different people with two different experiences. One with Andrew Cuomo who has been in Albany insider for 30 years who was elected with a group of people, including Eliot Spitzer, Alan Hevesi, and David Paterson that hasn’t done a lot of good for New York. And people are going to ask, and they should ask, ‘in the last four years as Attorney General, what have you done to clean up Albany? As Albany has been burning, where have you been?’ And, I would answer, ‘in a foxhole.’”

Lazio is in a three-way race for the republican nomination with Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy and Western New York billionaire Carl Paladino. Lazio, a former Congressman, leads the pack with just over 50% of the weighted vote among GOP county chairs.

Share|