The controversy over the meeting of the county chairmen of the state Republican Party next week is just another sign of a party that is divided and dysfunctional - with five important statewide races at stake less than a year away.

Next year may be the clearest shot that the state's Democrats will have at a clean sweep of state offices in decades. It also should have the GOP members concerned about what hits they may take in both the Assembly and state Senate.

The county chairmen are meeting in hopes of finding a consensus on candidates who are viable for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller and a U.S. Senate seat. In three races, the Democrats have either incumbents or strong favorites.

For the governor's race, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is the odds-on favorite to take back the governor's mansion for Democrats, after 12 years. For most observers, the race is his to lose. The GOP has a major fight within its party over who should be the nominee. Gov. George Pataki is not enamored with the prospects of Rochester businessman Thomas Golisano being the party's standard-bearer after several campaigns where he ran for the job on the Independence line against the governor. Pataki's faction of the party, including the party's state chairman, Stephen Minarik of Monroe County, seem to be favoring former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld as their candidate.

Many Republican members of the state Legislature would rather have the billionaire Golisano. Having the well-known former Independence Party standard bearer who not only has his own money but a reform agenda is better to top the ticket than a little-known former governor from another state.

This rift within the party is best exemplified by the sniping between the governor and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick. Bruno doesn't want the meeting next week. He knows that he and his members will still be in Albany in 2007, long after the governor runs for president or gets appointed to some post by the Bush Administration. Whether they want to publicly admit it or not, they see the governor as a political lame duck. They question whether having him in control of the state party is in their best interest.

The fight over the possible nomination of Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro to run against incumbent Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has the same undertones about who is in control of the GOP now and in the future.

With such divisions it is no surprise that some in the GOP are looking to clarify who their candidates will be. And some are willing to cut out the rank-and-file of the party from the process to be in control.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com