When I noted during yesterday’s “Capital Tonight” that Carl Paladino’s Taxpayers Party line could siphon enough votes from the state Conservative Party to prevent it from reaching the all-important 50,000 threshold, Republican US Senate hopeful Gary Berntsen’s response was: “Wouldn’t that be a shame.”

“Look, the Conservative Party didn’t choose a full array of conservatives across the state in lots of different places, in some congressional races and in some of the statewide races,” said Berntsen.

“I’m probably the most conservative man running in New York state. I didn’t get their nomination. I was only in week to 10 days before that convention, and Mr. Long held all the proxies in his pocket, and decided he was going to nominate his friend, Jay Townsend,.”

“And unfortunately, if that line does poorly, Mr. Long will be out of business after this year, and I suspect that the Taxpayers line is going to viewed by most people as sort of the real conservative line in New York ctate.”

Interestingly, Berntsen declined to endorse Carl Paladino for governor even though he’s running on the independent line that Paladino created, saying he prefers to stay out of that particular primary.

He doesn’t feel that way about all primaries, however, as he has endorsed Chris Cox in the three-way NY-1 GOP congressional contest.

Long, who was also instrumental in awarding his line to Paladino’s GOP primary opponent, Rick Lazio, has dismissed the suggestion that his ballot line might be in peril, telling Politics on the Hudson recently:

“The Conservative Party is not an overnight party. We’ve been around 48 years.”

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