It is unlikely, even in the wake of the disclosure of the clearly unethical misuse of a state employee, as a driver for his wife, that New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi will lose his bid to win re-election on Tuesday. Yet voters, who believe in good government, should not pull the lever for Hevesi #- they should be voting for his opponent, J. Christopher Callaghan, to send a loud and strong message to Albany that such behavior will not be tolerated.

Hevesi, prior to this gross act of arrogance, hubris, misjudgment or any other excoriating adjective you may want to use, was on a smooth glide path to re-election. Unlike his predecessor (H. Carl McCall) who seemed to continually be working toward a gubernatorial run, the current comptroller, did a decent job, righting some of the problems of the state's financial house, which had taken a wrong turn during the politically calculating McCall years.

But his successes, despite the rash of political ads that have run since the scandal broke, have rightfully been washed away by this disclosure. While he may have paid back close to $83,000 to the state, credible sources do not believe that this was nearly enough for transporting his wife about.

Making matters worse was the disclosure that his argument that he and his family had been threatened, were not deemed to warrant this type of service and were compounded by the fact that in an advisory opinion he sought years before he was told that such usage would be inappropriate.

Callaghan, who has twice been to Cayuga County in the last 35 days, was the one to raise this ethical lapse and deserves credit for exposing this clear abuse of power #- something that voters should expect a comptroller to identify, not do.

Yet, the comptroller seems to be betting his future on the hopeful ignorance of voters and that a strong statewide Democratic ticket, that includes Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (who has rightfully withdrawn his support from Hevesi) and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, will carry him to re-election. It is likely that his argument for staying in office will change drastically if he is re-elected - even by one vote.

To remove him from office will be difficult, the thought goes, if voters have just re-elected him to a second term. It will allow him to argue, before the state Legislature that could remove him from office, that the “people have spoken” and providing fellow Democrats the argument that he should stay having the approval of voters through the “democratic process” (though area state Sen. David Valesky, a fellow Democrat, has already said that he should resign).

Hevesi deserves to be defeated and Callaghan should be New York's next comptroller. No voter should give him the cover of “re-election” to allow him to keep his job one day longer than Dec. 31.

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