From the right of the GOP

This spurt of defiance by the Conservative Party – Dr. O’Grady was endorsed in Albany by Michael R. Long, its chairman – is risky. The last, and only, time the Conservatives elected a Senate candidate without help from the Republican line was in 1970. “But you have to stand on principle at some point,” asserts Dr. O’Grady, whose candidacy was suggested by Conservative Party members who supported her in her 2002 Congressional race against another Democratic incumbent, Carolyn McCarthy. Dr. O’Grady won the Republican and Conservative primaries and was endorsed by the Right-to-Life faction (she got her start in politics as an anti-abortion activist, and for several years was secretary of the Long Island Coalition for Life).

“I ran on principle that time, too,” she says. “I knew I was up against a huge fight: I had zero percent name recognition and was outspent five-to-one, but I still got 43 percent of the vote. I don’t feel like I lost a thing. I’ve always been competitive. You don’t get through medical school, and into an internship, and into residency, without being competitive. You could say I’ve taken my competitiveness to a new arena.”