Unhappy with the Brooklyn Republican Party’s support of non-Republican candidates, Club President Glenn Nocera keeps working to get all the “REPUBLICAN” GOP mayoral hopefuls to appear in front of his meetings of the Brooklyn Young Republican Club
Mr. Lhota arrived at the Brooklyn Young Republican Club meeting with fewer people in his entourage (Lhota had one advance person and one other assistant) than had Tom Allon, the candidate who had spoke there one month before. However, Lhota was no less impressive for that. Brooklyn YR Club President Glenn Nocera introduced Joe Lhota, as a man who had so many bullet points on his resume for the job of mayor that they’re tough to go through in a short introduction; so he only mentioned a few of Lhota's NYC government credentials: former head of the MTA; former Deputy Mayor of Operations; and former Head of the Office of Management and Budget.
Joseph Lhota, the candidate, the speaker and the man, took it from that formal and lofty intro and quickly made it all seem real for those who were gathered at the Ceol Irish Pub on Smith Street in Boerum Hill to hear and see him. He gave a comfortable speech in a down to earth style that demonstrated the length, breadth and depth of his mastery of almost any governmental aspect of city life. He quickly had the crowd of about forty-five YRs and guests impressed and comfortable asking follow-up questions. The time that Mr. Lhota was there, about an hour between about 2:30 and 3:30 passed quickly. He responded to every question asked with detailed and informative answers. The highlights included: Joe Lhota saying that he favored reducing or eliminating the use of traffic cams for automatic ticketing; he said he thought the big-gulp “soda ban” was an overreach and should be handled as an item of persuasion rather than prohibition; and he said he would seek the transfer of all MTA bridges in the city to New York City control.
After Joseph Lhota had finished, Glenn Nocera announced he was finalizing the appearance of Republican mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis for the April meeting, but that the details still needed to be worked out. A second scheduled speaker for last Sunday’s meeting, City Council candidate Andrew Sullivan, had to cancel due to a medical emergency and Glenn Nocera communicated his apologies and said Sullivan’s appearance would be rescheduled. Instead of the second speaker, Glenn spoke briefly and again urged that the members of the club who lived in Brooklyn should sign up to be members of the County Committee of the Republican Party; and he gave a full explanation of the duties of committee members and the method of petitioning to get onto the County Committee.
Once the formalities of the meeting had been concluded, the Glenn Nocera spoke privately, but in his capacity as President of the Brooklyn Young Republican Club, to some of the media in attendance. He expressed his concern and dissatisfaction that the Chairman of the Kings County Republican Party Craig Eaton was openly supporting Adolfo Carrion, a non-Republican with a very liberal Democratic Party history. Nocera said this was especially troubling since so many good and competitive Republican candidates were in the race. Asked if he were supporting any candidate, Nocera responded that he would not announce who he intended to support until every candidate had a fair opportunity to present themselves to the Brooklyn Young Republican Club.
2 comments:
If Catsimatidis does get Eaton's support, does Eaton have enough pull to keep Catsimatidis from appearing at Nocera's YR Club.
This is a very quick test to see whether JC can be his own man inside Brooklyn GOP politics. If history is a guide, getting the support of Craig Eaton doesn't seem to mean that much in Republican primaries.
This comment to a later post further above, "Republicans Cox, Priebus and Bernard have little ..." appeared earlier today:
"Anonymous March 12, 2013 at 6:59 AM
Looks like word of the Eaton-Golden split got out to the Reverend AR Bernard, Ed Cox and Rance Priebus, and maybe Eaton can use John Catsimatidis as a life preserver in a Golden and Lhota swimming hole"
My comment here is in reply to that comment as well as to the comment to this post, immediately above:
Thus far Craig Eaton has not formally endorsed John Catsimatidis. When and if that actually happens, all of the effects and results flowing or not flowing from that will become obvious in due course, and in many things that will be pretty quickly.
In any case, it does look there will be some kind of mayoral primary involving the Brooklyn GOP in 2013. Deal the cards and let the chips fall where they may.
To my recollection, there has not been a primary wherein Eaton and Golden have actively supported different candidates. Remember that in 2010 there was a congressional primary in the most Republican part of Brooklyn -- the candidate supported by both Eaton and Golden lost over all and in the Brooklyn part of the district, as well. Earlier there was a special election for City Council wherein Eaton and Golden supported different candidates -- the candidate supported by Golden won that election.
So let the games begin. We Republicans in Brooklyn are living in interesting times.
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