GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio’s latest Web video features man (and woman)-on-the-street interviews near the site of the proposed mosque with New Yorkers who oppose the project and support his call for AG Andrew Cuomo to investigate the $100 million project’s funding (when and if any funding shows up).

Two things that stand out here:

1) The video notes the first day Lazio employed the mosque as a wedge issue against his Democratic opponent was July 7 – well over a month ago now.

He was one of the first candidates – as far as I can recall, anyway – to seize on the project as a political football…little did we know how far this would go.

2) Lazio refers to the project as the mosque AT Ground Zero, even though the site is actually about two blocks away from the Twin Towers site.

UPDATE: Maggie Haberman makes an interesting point that I overlooked about the graphic images of the smoldering 9/11 wreckage at Ground Zero that Lazio’s video employs at the beginning, arguing that this is a major political gamble.

If the video goes viral, that could be. But Lazio has had trouble up to this point getting much traction. For example, even though he was one of the earliest mosque opponents, he is hardly the focus of the debate at this point.

There has been much debate over the proper verbiage to employ when referring to the mosque (or, if you prefer, as the developers do, “Islamic cultural” and/or “community” center). Generally speaking, opponents put the site closer to Ground Zero than it actually is, while supporters stress the distance between the two points.

In fact, yesterday, the real estate developer Sharif el-Gamal insisted the Park51 project is “nowhere near” Ground Zero, which is just as much of a stretch as “at” Ground Zero, no?

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