The Conservative Party chairman, Michael Long of Brooklyn, has some handicapping to do. His party must settle on its preferred candidates for the Assembly and Senate by the end of next week, even though the Legislature has yet to make its most important decisions of the year. This raises the possibility that lawmakers will accept the Conservative endorsement, then turn around and vote for things the party ardently opposes — namely, a big-spending budget, a higher minimum wage, and easy access to emergency contraception.

“That’s one of the things I’m wrestling with,” Mr. Long told us recently. “It’s a possibility that the state Legislature is setting up the Conservative Party to steal the endorsements.”

Of particular concern from the Conservative point of view is the Republican-led Senate and its majority leader, Jos. Bruno of Rensselaer County. As a former businessman who understands the importance of pro-growth policies, Mr. Bruno has been for most of his career a force for small government and low taxes. He became majority leader in 1995, the same year Governor Pataki took office, and in those early days the two of them did much to open the door for New York’s ensuing prosperity.

More recently, however, Mr. Bruno has drifted to the left, even further to the left than the governor. Especially so, by our lights, on fiscal policy. Fearful of losing his Senate majority in a predominantly Democratic state, he has caved in to the proposals of health-care labor unions and other proponents of big spending. The low point came last year, when Mr. Bruno joined forces with Assembly Democrats, in defiance of the governor, to enact huge tax hikes and override 120 of Mr. Pataki’s vetoes.

So far this year Mr. Bruno seems to be back in Mr. Pataki’s corner, resisting demands from the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver of Manhattan, that would put New York inexorably on the path to still higher taxes and a weaker economy. Yet rumors are flying that Mr. Bruno will cave on the minimum wage and other key issues later this summer to protect his most vulnerable members — such as Olga Mendez of East Harlem — from Democratic challenges. Indeed, he is bringing the Senate back to Albany the week of July 19,a mere four days after the Conservative Party endorsements become final.

If this is Mr. Bruno’s strategy, it strikes us as a loser. What use is there in having a divided, deadlocked Legislature if the Republican half ultimately goes along with everything the Democrats wanted in the first place?

We are mindful that Ms. Mendez is one of four Democrats in five years whom Mr. Bruno has recruited to his side of the aisle. He is now hard at work on a fifth, Assemblyman Stephen Kaufman of the Bronx, who hopes to fill the shoes of the disgraced Republican senator and power broker, Guy Velella. If Mr. Bruno insists on filling his ranks with Democrats and approving Democratic legislation, he will lose whatever remaining claim he has to the label Conservative. No wonder Mr. Long is wrestling with how to hedge his bet.