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Gubernatorial candidate Lazio stops in Utica

By By JOLEEN FERRIS

Story Created: Apr 28, 2010 at 2:33 PM EDT

Story Updated: Apr 28, 2010 at 2:33 PM EDT

UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - The Republican front-runner for this fall's gubernatorial race addressed the Oneida County Republican 100,000 club today at the Hotel Utica.

Rick Lazio is no stranger to politics-or upstate NY. He ran unsuccessfully against Hillary Clinton for Daniel Patrick Moynihan's U.S. Senate seat in 2000, and represented the state's 2nd district in Congress from 1993 to 2001.

In most current polls, Lazio trails Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who hasn't even declared himself a candidate for governor this fall. Lazio talked about a possible match-up between himself and the son of former Governor Mario Cuomo.

"...fundamentally you're going to be talking about two different people with two different experiences. One, with Andrew Cuomo, who's been an Albany insider for 30 years, who was elected with a group of people including Eliot Spitzer, Alan Hevesi and David Paterson that hasn't done a lot of good for New York," said Lazio.

Lazio says that being out of politics for the past 10 years will actually serve him well this election season.

"I think being out in the private sector for for 10 years gives me great life balance. I've had a record as a prosecutor of 100% conviction rate where I've done public corruption cases and organized crime cases i've been a local legislator I've been a four-year member of congress that wrote the first balanced budget in a generation."

Lazio on Wednesday released his "policy agenda: a plan to rebuild NY", in which he talks about making overhauling a state known for it's business-unfriendly environment.

"The state knows what it's got to do; it's going to be driving down taxes on small business, we're going to be driving down taxes on energy, where we pay some of the highest energy costs in the entire nation, we're going to be paying attention to other issues like start-up businesses in upstate."

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