Collins and the "Antichrist''

Can someone who earlier this fall compared a leading New York Democrat to Adolph Hitler be seriously considered as a Republican candidate for governor of New York?

That's a question facing Republicans as Erie County Executive Chris Collins edges closer to jumping in the race.

Collins told Fred Dicker today on Talk-1300-AM in Albany that he'll decide in January whether to seek the GOP nomination for governor.He sounded like he was already running.

Collins, 59, has been chief executive of the largest upstate county (home of Buffalo) for two years. His potential candidacy might look a little better to Republicans today after a new poll showed that Gov. David Paterson would defeat the only Republican to announce so far, former Long Island Congressman Rick Lazio, who lost the Senate election to Hillary Clinton in 2000. (Of course, most people expect Paterson to drop our and that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will be the Democratic candidate.) Still, Lazio doesn't look like a winner.

Collins was more of a potentially hot statewide commodity before October, when he told a GOP fund-raiser crowd in Buffalo that he was "pretty sure" that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, an Orthodox Jew, is an "Antichrist" like Napoleon and Hitler.

His profuse apologies and claims he's simply made a "poor joke'' since haven't done much to quiet criticism that his words made him a political pariah, especially downstate, where 12 million of the state's 19 million people live.

Yet he has a strong anti-tax, anti-government message that might be just what Republicans will be looking for next year, especially if the economic slide and trend to higher taxes continue (good bet).

Trouble is, once you insert a foot into your mouth, it is often difficult to get it out.