ICYMI: State Independence Party Chairman Frank MacKay was in Saratoga County this weekend to publicly declare his early endorsement of Sen. Roy McDonald, who has been losing support among local Republicans and Conservatives of late and may face a primary challenge from Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin.

It’s possible this early endorsement isn’t actually so early if the Senate and Assembly get their respective acts together and move the regularly scheduled Sept. 11 state primaries up to coincide with the court-ordered June 26 US Senate and congressional primaries – or relocate all the primaries to some mutually agreed-upon date in July or August.

That hasn’t happened yet, though, despite multiple calls for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to flex some muscle and make it so.

We also still don’t know if McDonald will actually have to duke it out for Rows B and C anyway, since McLaughlin has yet to formally announce his candidacy.

MacKay, a close ally of Cuomo, has already provided an “early” endorsement to another of McDonald’s GOP colleagues who crossed the aisle to vote “yes” on the governor’s gay marriage bill and is now paying the price for it on the right: Sen. Mark Grisanti, who lost the Erie County Conservative Party nod to Democrat (yeah, well, it’s WNY politics, remember) Chuck Swanick.

Here’s what MacKay had to say about McDonald; he was quite effusive in his praise of the former Wilton town supervisor:

“We’ve always endorsed Senator McDonald. The question would be: Why did we endorse Senator McDonald early?”

“I think because he’s one of the most independent men out there, certainly the most independent public official, I feel, in this area. I think he’s fantastic. He’s taken some very tough stances on some tough votes, and he’s hung in there…So we’re here earlier than we’ve ever done.”

“…In politics, if there’s one thing I’ve learned is, if you’re not happy with the way things are going, wait. In ten minutes, everything could be completely different. Let’s see how everything plays out.”

“I think as far as other people’s endorsements, we certainly can’t speak to that, but the senator has a tremendous amount of support…I think he’s going to be a senator for a very, very long time. I think people will back him more and more as we go.

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