History will someday show that Congressmen John Sweeney and Peter King have rendered the Republican cause in New York genuine service by rocking the boat and declaring that the state GOP has badly lost its way during the governorship of George Pataki. For what, they ask, does the party now stand? Of the two men, Mr. Sweeney is the more important, having held high office in both the party and the Empire State. Nonetheless, Mr. King’s intervention is on this occasion symptomatic of widespread grassroots disaffection – precisely because he has tended to operate solo for much of the time.

Why is the New York’s Republican Party a house divided? After winning election on a platform of fiscal rectitude and social liberalism in 1994, Mr. Pataki has time and again treated with the foes of conservatism for the sake of preserving his own hide. Early fiscal focus was ditched for an orgy of taxing and spending. The governor’s own executive budget rose by $3.3 billion between 2004 and 2005,a submission that cannot be blamed upon the even more profligate Democrats who dominate the Assembly. By the most cautious estimates, state expenditures will rise at twice the rate of inflation over the next three years.

State-funded Medicaid alone has ballooned by 26% since 2001, and is projected to rise by a further $672 million next year. The $5.4 billion tax increases over three years are among the largest in the nation, and exceed those in the latter phases of Mr. Cuomo’s tenure at Albany. Typical of Mr. Pataki’s profligacy was the preposterously generous settlement that he gave the hospital employees union, Lo cal 1199, in exchange for their endorsement. He has more or less abandoned the concerns of the social and cultural conservatives. It’s all in sharp contrast to President Bush, and the question is what has all Mr. Pataki’s temporizing done for the Republicans in New York State.

Mr. Bush, in the election just ended, markedly improved his position on his 2000 showing in the state, but Senator Kerry’s victory by a 58% to 41% margin was nonetheless a particularly poor performance by the GOP considering that the Empire State bore the brunt of the September 11 attacks and the commander in chief campaigned so vigorously on terrorism-related issues. Indeed, the Democrats even carried Nassau and Suffolk counties, two of the most Republican in the state. Mr. Pataki’s handpicked candidate for the United States Senate, Albany legislator Howard Mills – who shaded the ideological differences between himself and Mr. Schumer – was soundly trounced.

No one is suggesting that New York was a priority for national Republican campaign strategists, but the White House, which was planning a massive grassroots volunteer effort to mobilize registered Republicans across the country, could not but help noticing the extensive demoralization of ordinary conservatives in the state. Not surprising that the state GOP desperately needs to hold the emergency summit suggested by Mr. King. The contrast between the president and the governor is instructive here. Mr. Bush is turning out to be one of the greatest party-builders ever in the White House, whereas Mr. Pataki is stranding the New York Republicans in a fit of Nixonian selfishness.