All candidates need to voice their stand or position on this issue. I for one as a Registered Conservative for 13 years am against this and have been since the get go. Where do all the Democrats that got the Conservative Party endorsement stand? We all know they received the endorsement to protect the “Parties” jobs…

Long warns that the Democrat-Conservatives should heed the party’s opposition to what has become a hot-button issue.

“It could certainly take away from them having the Conservative Party endorsement,” Long said. “You can’t be for law and order and then say you’re for allowing the governor of the State of New York to give illegal immigrants a driver’s license.”

As Spitzer arrives, Democrats cringe

Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer comes to town today to campaign for county executive hopeful James P. Keane, the kind of appearance that normally attracts a lot of smiling Democrats.

But Spitzer’s plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants is giving local Democrats a case of the political cringes, right at the height of campaign season.

Now, with a new Buffalo News/WGRZ-TV Channel 2 poll showing Erie County voters opposed to the idea by a whopping 72 to 22 percent, Democrats are finding it more difficult to stand behind their titular leader.

“It is hard to project how this would have a huge positive impact for Keane,” said John Zogby of Utica, whose Zogby International conducted the poll.

Few Democrats will publicly criticize the governor, but many here and elsewhere in the state are questioning whether Spitzer has turned into a liability during this campaign season.

“The nervousness among local party chairs is palpable,” said one statewide Democratic activist who is following the situation. “He started a fight right in the middle of the local campaign season that nobody was prepared for.”

A Democratic consultant said Spitzer never seemed to calculate the damage that the license order is wreaking among candidates, especially upstate.

“Could the timing on this issue be any worse for upstate Democrats?” he asked.

Zogby, who for two days last week surveyed 400 Erie County residents who are likely to vote, said he finds the order “a loser everywhere” throughout the state. He noted that grass-roots candidates such as those running for county clerk know their politics and that most of them have turned against it.