McCain's LI chief flooded with calls after Fla.

RICK BRAND | rick.brand@newsday.com

February 3, 2008

While New York's Republican establishment climbed en masse aboard Sen. John McCain's Straight Talk Express last week, his top Long Island organizer, Assemb. Philip Boyle, was still trying to cope with the sudden success.

After nine months of getting fewer calls than the Maytag repairman, Boyle said he was inundated with more than 100 calls the day after the Florida presidential primary.

"Only weeks ago, we thought we had an extremely uphill battle to even compete in New York State," said the Bay Shore-based lawmaker. "Now, there's a sea change."

State and Nassau GOP chairman Joe Mondello, Suffolk Republican boss Harry Withers and a slew of other state GOP officials joined McCain's ranks only last Wednesday, hours after their "favorite son" Rudy Giuliani swooned in the Sunshine State and before "America's Mayor" himself endorsed the Arizona senator. Former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato joined only a week earlier when his personal pick, TV actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson, dropped out. Giuliani's exit and the backing of GOP officials, experts say, virtually clears the way for McCain to win New York's 101 delegates in the winner-take-all primary Tuesday.

The turnabout is especially sweet for Boyle, whose support for McCain goes back eight years to when Boyle first ran as a delegate for the long shot McCain, at a time when most top Republican officials across Long Island were backing the candidate described as a "compassionate conservative" - George W. Bush. Even though Boyle had a better sense of the grass roots than party bosses - McCain won all across Long Island in 2000 - Boyle said he felt ostracized from the party for more than a year.

"I felt like a pariah," he said. "And I'm sure it had a large part in my not getting more of a chance to run for Congress. ... I was told that they [party leaders] didn't appreciate elected officials bucking them."

That 2nd Congressional District seat came open when Boyle's former boss, then Rep. Rick Lazio (R-Brightwaters), decided to challenge then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for U.S. Senate after then-New York City Mayor Giuliani dropped out of the Senate race. While Boyle, by then an assemblyman, would have been a natural choice as Lazio's former aide, the GOP nomination went to Islip Town Clerk Joan Johnson. To make matters worse, GOP officials at the time even asked Boyle to help enlist McCain to headline a fundraiser for Johnson, who eventually lost to Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington).

Not only was Boyle passed over, he subsequently suffered a political losing steak worthy of Job.

Lazio, assisted by Boyle, lost to Clinton in 2000. His friend Assemb. John Flanagan lost his bid for Assembly minority leader in 2002, and Boyle lost his Assembly seat in redistricting to Assemb. Thomas Barraga (R-West Islip), the lone Long Islander to oppose Flanagan's leadership bid. Boyle also managed Republican Edward Romaine's 2003 campaign for county executive. Romaine lost to Democrat Steve Levy even though Romaine had four ballot lines to Levy's one. Boyle finally broke his losing streak two years ago when he won back his old Assembly seat after Barraga won a seat on the Suffolk legislature. Before he won that special election, Boyle said his new wife used to joke, "Don't you ever win?"

His admiration of McCain, said Boyle, dates back to when he was a young congressional aide and he saw the former POW war hero.

Boyle said he signed on to support McCain's current presidential bid about nine months ago. And his efforts for McCain centered on a weekly conference call among nine supporters around the state, including attorney Grant Lally, a onetime congressional candidate from Oyster Bay. Lally, who backed Bush in 2000, said he signed on with McCain after getting to know him when he was lobbying on Irish-American immigration issues. He held a fundraiser for McCain that raised more than $50,000 last summer but admitted raising money at that time was hard because the campaign appeared in shambles.

"People were just sitting back," he said.

Even when McCain's campaign was in trouble and New York looked like a "lost cause," Boyle said he never wavered.

"I decided I was not going to leave Senator McCain until he terminated the race, or he won the nomination," he said. "Of course, I prefer the latter."