Democrats have been wishing for a long time for the demise of Senator Joe Bruno and his GOP Majority in the State Senate. It's bound to happen in the elections of 2008. That leaves the State Republican Party in the wilderness without state-wide elected office or any voice in the affairs of state government, for the first time in nearly 70 years.

If this happens, what will the Republicans do? Their next chance to run will be in 2010 and that will be a gubernatorial election. They need to find a candidate that will both be winable against Governor Spitzer, be wealthy enough to self-finance his or her campaign, and also bring back the state Senate.

Mike Bloomberg might just be that candidate. Repeated polling shows that he's very competitive to Spitzer, and he has the ambition to run for President, even though a successful race for him is all but impossible in 2008 without major party backing. And in 2009 he will be term limited out of the New York City's mayorship. He needs to find a new office that will allow him to persue the goal of being president.

Mike Bloomberg is very wealthy even compared to Governor Spitzer. He's also a moderate, which could move well for a state that is moving farther to the left in recent years, and becoming more Democratic. He could be the Republican's savior if he were to run. He hasn't said he's going to run. But if the conservatives in the GOP could get behind him, as the party's best hope, then he could bring the GOP back from the bring of extinction in New York. Bloomberg's coatails might even given the GOP the Senate Majority again, although it would never be the conservative GOP under the Senator Bruno leadership.

Upstate and in many of the New York City suburbs there still is a desire for Republican leadership. But in many places, that desire is not for the conservative leadership by Senator Bruno and company, but a refreshingly liberal leadership like that of former Governor Nelson Rockefeller or Senator Jacob Javits in the 1960s. Liberalism might not come to mind when you think of the Republicans today. But commonsense moderate and pragmatic policies, that bring many New Yorkers together, could be what unites the GOP with what New Yorkers wants.