Feature

Which Rick Do You Pick?

Last week a chaotic Manhattan fund-raiser had Lazio's friends grumbling about the management of the campaign. "They're pushing Rick too hard. He cannot continue this torrid pace," says a longtime Lazio pal. "Rick has to find a way to say no, and that's hard for him."

After his ABNY speech, Lazio is literally backed into a corner at the Waldorf as two dozen reporters grill him about his 1997 stock killing. Lazio, whose wife is also named Pat, stirs memories of Pat Nixon's "respectable Republican cloth coat" by saying, "You know, I spoke to my wife last night about this. She said, 'Listen, you know what? We're honest, decent people. I clean my own house. They're trying to drag you down into the mud; don't let them do it.' And I'm not going to let them do it."

Lazio contends that his profit in Quick & Reilly stock was the result of luck, not insider information, and that his otherwise trifling investment returns, "5 to 10 percent," are evidence that he's been making his picks without illegal insight. Yet it's the rarity of his big gain, combined with his closeness to the company's principals, that makes the deal seem so fishy. On May 18, one day before Giuliani quit the Senate race, I asked Michael Moriarty, Lazio's brother-in-law and now his campaign's counsel, to name the subject he teases Rick about most. "His constant carp is that everybody's boat seems to have risen but his," Moriarty said with a laugh. "That's a constant source of needling -- his constant refrain of stock-market lapses, his terrible failures of investment in the stock market."

Perhaps Lazio did get lucky. Perhaps he got tired of watching those other boats rise. Regardless, his failure to place his investments in a blind trust shows surprisingly poor political judgment. Lazio has sat on the House Banking Committee for six years and Commerce for three, so his insistence on continuing as an active stock trader -- whether he ever did anything wrong or not -- left him wide open to charges of conflict of interest.

It's morning again in West Islip. A day after Lazio was sweating at the Waldorf, the scene is breezy and bright on the high-school football field. On this cloudless Saturday, Lazio has returned to deliver the commencement speech to the class of 2000. After bonding with the 307 graduating seniors by evoking the landmarks of eternal Long Island teen-hood -- "parking field five at Jones Beach" -- Lazio challenges the kids to strive for happiness and not material wealth. But he makes the point by telling them, "Don't mortgage your entire life in wild pursuit of a bigger paycheck, a higher stock-option package, and a vacation home in the Catskills," an oddly tone-deaf choice of references, since Lazio is being investigated by the SEC.

Between shaking hands with each of the graduates as they file across the stage to receive their diploma, Lazio glances out into the middle distance. It's hard to tell whether his mind is wandering or whether he's searching for something. Spend any time around Lazio and there's sure to be a glimmer that he appreciates how profoundly absurd modern politics has become. There's a tilt of his head and the beginning of a wisecracking smile, and you can tell the regular guy is still alive in there. Lazio ambles from the podium and muses on the distance he's traveled in 24 years. "Yeah, being here does make me want to be 18 again," he says. "Especially when the kids are saying, 'Hey, Mr. Lazio, wanna go to a party?' " he says, laughing and putting on his best Long Island-stoner voice.

But now it's time for another "press avail," feeding the daily beast. Lazio stands in front of a cinder-block wall painted bright blue and gold with the West Islip Lions logo. A Post reporter asks Lazio his reaction to the fact that after merely one month of the campaign, both Clinton and Lazio spokesminions are hurling the word "desperate" at the other camp. Lazio starts to roll his eyes; his head tilts; he snorts out a self-deprecating laugh and seems as if he's about to pronounce all of this posturing meaningless and wildly silly . . . but he isn't John McCain, and the guy with a sense of irony suddenly recedes and Lazio slips back into robo-candidate mode, talking about how he expects to be outspent, hitting all the poll-tested notes that summon Hillary's negatives, blah blah blah.

Lazio peels off his black graduation robe and hops into the back seat of a gleaming ivory SUV, driving off to spend the rest of his day begging strangers for money, and a little more of that earnest 18-year-old who graduated on this football field fades away, replaced by the adult Rick Lazio has grown up to be: not evil. Not noble. Just thoroughly pragmatic. The cool kids from high school who became hip adults mock Lazio, but the vast mainstream lives in his banal and decent world of play dates, rising gas prices, and bartered ideals. And they may recognize enough of themselves in Lazio to elect the son of the Silent Majority New York's next senator.