The boss of the Conservative Party, Mike Long, is officially against him, and that Decker College scandal just won’t go away, but convivial gubernatorial wannabe Bill Weld’s big-time Republican Establishment friends are still behind him. Sources say Henry Kissinger (whom Weld knows from his past, including a gig in the Reagan Justice Department) and his wife, Nancy, are hosting a cocktail party for Weld at their River House apartment on March 14, with the goal of raising $100,000. Weld is also tapping the GOP lobbying Establishment in D.C.: On March 8, former Michigan governor John Engler—now president of the powerful National Association of Manufacturers—is hosting a big D.C. fund-raiser for Weld, sources add. But will it help? “He can have fancy fund-raisers till the cows come home, but he’ll still be dogged by Decker and still be a liberal elitist in the eyes of the Conservative Party,” says an aide to a Weld rival. But a Weld backer says it shows that “none of the other candidates have Bill’s résumé and reach.”

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Greg Sargent
• Table of Contents: Mar 6, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!