State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long just told me that he has received an assurance from state GOP Chairman Ed Cox that the Republicans are probably going to scrap their controversial plan to establish an independent line for all their designees to run on in the general election.

“He told me that while it wasn’t over yet, it was looking toward that they were not going to do the third party line,” Long said. “He said it was beginning to lean that way.”

This conversation between the two warring chairmen took place last week after a fundraiser for GOP state comptroller designee Harry Wilson, who, along with DA contender Dan Donovan, are the only Republican statewide candidates not facing primary challenges.

A GOP source cautioned that the establishment of a new line is “still being discussed with all the stakeholders who would be involved,” adding that a final decision will be made “soon” (it has to, since the petitioning period is Aug. 10-17).

There are a lot of competing interests at stake here.

Needless to say, Long is very upset about this.

He’s convinced this plan was, as he put it, “born on the floor of the (GOP) convention to punish or get even with the Conservative Party” for holding its convention first, tapping Rick Lazio as its gubernatorial candidate and helping him to block Cox’s preferred candidate, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, from getting on the GOP primary ballot.

Cox loyalists have insisted this isn’t true, noting former Gov. George Pataki ran on independent lines in both 1994 and 1998 as well as the GOP and Conservative lines (this is something of a time-honored tradition; Mayor Bloomberg has done it in all three of his elections, too).

Sources said Nassau County GOP Chairman Joe Mondello likes the idea of an independent line because he thinks it might help his hometown US Senate candidate, Bruce Blakeman, in the general election against the Conservatives’ nominee, former Rep. Joe DioGuardi (assuming DioGuardi doesn’t succeeed in his petitioning effort to get onto the primary ballot and defeat both Blakeman and David Malpass in September).

As Long pointed out, that’s sort of a dangerous game, because the GOP and Conservatives could end up spreading themselves very thin indeed, with three candidates who were supposed to be on the same team all competing against one another for the same pool of voters against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who already has the Democratic enrollment edge working for her.

So far, neither Lazio nor Donovan have agreed to rule out running on the new GOP line – should Cox push forward with the plan – and that’s something of a slap to Long, since both of them are the Conservative Party designees. (Wilson’s campaign hasn’t provided a definitive answer yet).

Long confirmed a tip I received that he is scheduled to meet today with Lazio, although he insisted get-together is more of a routine touching-base sort of thing and wasn’t specifically called to address the independent party problem.

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