In a recent post, I called on the 2013 GOP City Council Candidates to come to the Brooklyn GOP County Convention and tell everybody gathered how this year's GOP organizational fight has torpedoed any real chance they had to win their constests for City Council seats --- I doubt that you'll be hearing any such thing from them tomorrow --- Here are some of the reasons why
John Quaglione has had an uphill slog in his 2013 run for City Council from the very beginning. First is the fact that he is up against a popular neighborhood guy, Vinny G, who keeps winning re-election after re-election by bigger and bigger margins; second, from day one he has been carrying a burden of being a staff member for an already-elected official ( because of obvious conflicts, Brooklyn GOP rules should prohibit such dual identity-double-liability candidacies unless the staff member agrees to resign their staff positions prior to petitioning); third, in the early going the pesky candidacy of Hard Hat Andy Sullivan garnered as much media interest as did the Quaglione race; and fourth, since early summer the Quaglione campaign has run a virtual stealth effort, being at best an afterthought at various political gatherings for other candidates or a rump caucus trying to oust the current GOP leadership. It would appear that John Q will either appear at the GOP County convention clearly alligned with the Golden-Cochrane faction or pass on the Brooklyn GOP's biggest political gathering of this election cycle. Either way it'll be bad for John Q insider (anything but "Public"); he'd be well advised to give it all a pass tomorrow and hope for the best.
The story is not much better for David Storobin and Anthony Testeverde.
Many believe that David Storbin has the best shot of winning among all the GOP City Council candidates running in Brooklyn. However, the split in the Brooklyn GOP will deprive him of even the semblance the unified campaign that won him the special state senate election early in 2012. A clear split in his support for the general election, losing the support of the NYS Senate Majority Leader and the endorsement of the Conservative Party in a recut senate district showed that he was not even competitive without that unified support along with the Organization Republicans. Storobin's apparent shift to the Golden camp in 2013 will not garner any help from the establichment Republicans who helped him in 2012 for his run in November 2013. In addition, there has been a minimum of fundraising for this Council race compared to what was generated for the special in 2012. If he makes an appearance at the GOP County Convention , David Storobin will need to show his allegience to the Golden-Republicans for Change faction; thus far, it is only from that group that anybody came out and helped Storobin's 2013 run for the Council. Regardless of who wins the County Leadership on Monday, it is unlikely that anybody backing Eaton would do the same for Storobin in November 2013. In any case, Storobin can't really help himself in any way by showing up at the 2013 GOP County Convention.
Anthony Testeverde is the oddest choice of all the candidates running for City Council this year. In fact, he is the oddest GOP choice to run for the City Council in Brooklyn since George Smith, AT's longtime friend, who was selected to run several years ago by Mr. T, himself. Like John Q, above, Testeverde is a member of the staff of State Senator Martin Golden; and he must bear the same cross on his shoulders, except he suffers from the additional conflict of interest, that of being a Republican Party State Committeeman/District Leader (the Brooklyn GOP should have an additional rule that no State Committee person can serve on the staff of any elected official, because of the inherant conflict). If he presents himself at the convention, he'll be a source of embarrassment to himself and his boss, State Senator Martin Golden. He will open himself and Golden to questions about what had been done by Golden's Office to get certain contracts and/or concessions from the City for the abovementioned George Smith, a convicted criminal with additional charges pending several years ago.
Both Hardhat Andy Sullivan and Joseph Hayon are real "Wild Card" mavericks. They both will probably be supporting the incumbent County Leader Craig Eaton. Neither expects much from the Golden crowd and they also don't hold the Golden staff in very high regard. They could show up and benefit from openly showing their support for Eaton's re-election.
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