GOP hopeful Lazio shoots, defends at basketball event

GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio spent Friday morning at a youth basketball tournament in Elmont, where he took a few shots - air-balling his first but swishing the next two - and deflected questions about his lagging fundraising efforts.

Lazio, of Brightwaters, and other area Republicans appeared at the David Dangerfield 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament, honoring David Dangerfield Sr., a New York City firefighter who responded to the Sept. 11 attacks and who died last August. After he was passed the basketball, Lazio tried a few moves, unguarded, near the hoop.

Each made shot drew cheers from some of the campaign staff and teenagers watching.

"I haven't picked up a ball in a long time," he said later.

Lazio is trailing state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Democrats' choice for governor, in polls and fundraising. On Friday, Lazio downplayed expectations for the next round of campaign finance disclosures, due July 15. He said preparations for June's GOP state party convention had "distracted" his campaign from fundraising.

"We've got a lot of people who are stepping up to host events . . . after the deadline," Lazio said. "We'll raise the majority of our money in the fall. We don't have to outraise Andrew Cuomo dollar-for-dollar."

Also Friday, the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association slammed Lazio for comments calling on Cuomo to investigate the funding of a planned mosque near Ground Zero. "Rick Lazio should stop exploiting the worst day in New York history for the sake of his campaign," the group's president, Paul Nunziato, said in a statement.

A Lazio spokesman referred questions to Debra Burlingame, the sister of an American Airlines pilot killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Burlingame, who appeared with Lazio at a news conference this week, said the PBA's statement misconstrued Lazio's concerns about the mosque. "These are questions that millions of New Yorkers are concerned about," she said.