New York Republicans can look forward to an even more vigorous Senate primary now that Jeanine Pirro has decided to enter the fray. Once she makes her formal announcement on Wednesday, Mrs. Pirro will join Edward Cox and John Spencer in a three-way race for the right to challenge Senator Clinton. It will be an important contest not only because a Senate seat is at stake but also because it provides an opportunity for rank-and-file members of the state GOP to consider where their party is headed.

Mrs. Pirro, the Westchester district attorney, has made her name tackling child molesters and underage drinking, as well as working on behalf of victims of domestic violence. She is somewhat liberal on social issues. In a press release issued yesterday, she described herself as “Republican red on fiscal policy, taxes, and foreign policy and the war on terror.” But she also touted her “broad blue stripes on the social issues. “Although her purported fiscal program would offer some contrast to Senator Clinton, Mrs. Pirro mainly plugs as her main qualification the fact that she isn’t running for president: “New York State deserves a senator who … will not miss votes to campaign in primaries.”

In many ways, Mrs. Pirro looks like the next bearer of the “centrist Republican” standard sometimes flown by Governor Pataki and Senator D’Amato before him. But Republicans have conservative options. On his campaign Web site, Mr. Cox touts his support for Social Security personal accounts and for giving President Bush’s judicial nominees an up-or-down vote. Mr. Spencer promises to run from the right, as well, playing up his record as a tax cutter during his tenure as mayor of Yonkers. Both are pro-life.

In an open letter on his Web site, Mr. Spencer argues that the New York Republican Party has languished over the past decade because it has forgotten its conservative roots. Certainly it will be difficult to challenge Mrs. Clinton from the center when she has been trying so aggressively to carve out centrist positions herself; such a race devolves to a question of likability. And it’s worth asking whether Republicans are really better off running on personality rather than policy. The Democrats haven’t had much luck after President Clinton.

That’s why it is now doubly important that state party leaders step out of the way and let the grass roots decide. The state chairman, Stephen Minarik, has come in for criticism for openly encouraging Mrs. Pirro to run even as Messrs. Cox and Spencer were launching their bids. We’re for a contested primary as a method by which Republicans can decide what kind of party their party will be. This race is too important to Republicans across the state to be decided by a handful of party operatives.