THE pundits are calling it the "drive by primary" because there has been so little time for actual campaigning. Drive by shooting might be more apt. When voters in New York go to the polls today to vote in the Republican nomination race, the rat a tat of verbal gunfire will be in their ears.
No one would expect it to be any different, of course politics in the Empire State has never been genteel. Does anyone remember the headlines four years ago when the Democrats were agonising over their candidate for the White House? It was there that Bill Clinton admitted smoking pot, but not inhaling.
Taking most of the bullets this time, oddly, has been a man who is not even running for president, but rather the bespectacled figure of Mr Alfonse d'Amato.
The senior senator from New York and the self declared leader of the state's Republican Party, Mr d'Amato has been accused of Soviet style machinations designed to guarantee that Senator Bob Dole wins in the state come what may.
Mr d'Amato's first trick was to defend patently undemocratic party rules that made it virtually impossible for anyone other than Mr Dole even to make it to the ballot. That tactic was finally ruled out of order by the courts last week, giving just enough time for Mr Steve Forbes to qualify in all 31 of New York's electoral districts and Mr Pat Buchanan in just 23.
But Mr d'Amato still has the cards and so, too, therefore, does Mr Dole. When they enter the polling booths today, voters in New York will not be voting directly for the candidates but for the delegates that each wants to send to the Republican convent ion.
The delegates for Mr Dole are nearly all high profile and often popular names in their local districts. Messrs Forbes and Buchanan have had to scrape together delegates who are mostly unknown.
"It is like an Eastern European election in the 1950s, thundered Mr Buchanan in a campaign appearance in Buffalo, in the north of the state. (Because of his less than overwhelming appeal to ethnic voters, Mr Buchanan has not come within 300 miles of New York City).
Meanwhile, Mr Buchanan has opened a second front against the Republican Mayor of New York City, Mr Rudolph Giuliani, who has taken a blunt anyone but Buchanan position.
"Mayor Giuliani has had personal problems with me ever since I wrote columns severely critical of him," Mr Buchanan claimed.
Mr d'Amato, whose other full time job is keeping the Whitewater affair alive as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has also made sure that whenever Mr Dole has appeared in the state, he has been flanked by the mighty of the party.
A rally for Mr Dole in Franklin Square, Long Island, two nights ago was a show case for the party machine, gently purring.
"Isn't he dynamic, ladies and gentleman," declared Mr Joseph Mondello, chairman of the Nassau County Republicans, introducing the candidate. Honest answer: No. Party answer: Yes, sirree.
And the machine, it seems, is about to deliver. Yesterday both the Daily News and New York Post joined in endorsing Mr Dole and the eve of voting polls all put the senator comfortably ahead of his foes.
AFP reports from Washington:
The multi millionaire Republican presidential hopeful, Mr Steve Forbes, won the endorsement yesterday of Mr Jack Kemp, a former New York senator and leading Republican figure.
But Mr Kemp told a televised press conference in Buffalo that his decision to endorse Mr Forbes was a difficult one and insisted: "I am not here to campaign against Bob Dole."