Most reasonable political observers would agree the New York Republican Party is in a state of disarray. The GOP has just one person holding a statewide elected office - Gov. George Pataki - and he has officially become a lame duck governor after announcing over the summer that he would not seek re-election.

So now is not the time to be openly bickering. But that is exactly what happened last week, when the state party chairman said all of the candidates for the 2006 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races have pledged to not force a primary. He went so far as to indicate that anyone who claims to have never made such a promise has questionable character.

The chairman, Stephen Minarik, may find that those words come back to haunt him.

Several of the candidates - including Senate candidates Ed Cox and John Spencer and potential gubernatorial candidate Randy Daniels - said they made no such pledge to abide completely by the decision of the party's leaders.

Unless someone produces a tape of the meeting or meetings in which such pledges were made, we will never know who is lying. But by making this dispute public, Minarik has damaged the party's already severely limited chances of defeating incumbent U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Eliot Spitzer, the state attorney general who is the favorite to be the Democratic nominee for governor.

Minarik has made the state GOP's already weak image look worse.

The Republicans interested in running for these seats need a party chairman who appears in control and confident. With the election more than a year away, he should be promoting the merits of all the candidates and focusing on why his party will offer a better choice.

Minarik will have done considerable damage with his outburst last week if one of the candidates he challenged - Cox, Spencer or Daniels - wind up with the nomination. Democrats would not hesitate to use the GOP party leader's negative character assessment of his own candidate.

Minarik's total opposition to a primary is also short-sighted. Primary elections are decided by the party's rank and file - not the political bosses.

These are the same people the party will need as a base during the general election. And a candidate who wins a primary can enjoy some considerable momentum going into the general campaign, which in reality does not start until after the primary.