Does this mean that Mr. Carrion is really on a roll? Maybe, with what might be an opening to get a GOP Wilson-Pakula and an Independence Party line looking like it might be all but locked up...
It was reported that Eaton; who is still a formal open supporter of Carrion, although until several days ago a wavering one; said he had told Guy Molinari to meet with Carrion a while back, and that Molinari came away impressed with the former Bronx Democrat, who served in the Obama Administration. According to Eaton, "[Guy Molinari] was always supportive of Adolfo until Joe Lhota threw his hat in the ring."
It turns out that Molinari's views on Carrion might even have been better than that. Supposedly Guy Molinari said to Craig Eaton that Eaton “...would go down in history...” for his strong push for the GOP to back Adolfo Carrion. One had to assume that Guy was pulling Eaton’s leg, at least a little bit. Of course, Guy’s remark might also have contained a proviso that went something like this — “... if and when the Hispanic vote largely comes over to the GOP to vote because Carrion is the GOP candidate for mayor...” With the natural implication that if anything else happened, Eaton certainly would go down in history for the sheer foolhardiness of his trying to get the rest of the City’s GOP to endorse a life-long liberal Democrat and member of the Obama Administration to be the Republican nominee for mayor in 2013.
Bada bing bada boom ! ! ! Neither Joe Lhota nor anybody else from his campaign calls Guy to firm up Molinari’s “scheduled” endorsement of Lhota, Guy Molinari gets pissed. Instead Molinari decides that he’s set to endorse Adolfo Carrion, because Carrion kept calling the Staten Island Guy even after Molinari had seemed to go for Lhota ( See “Un-returned phone calls lead former Staten Island BP Molinari to dump support for GOP mayoral candidate Joe Lhota” by Tom Wrobleski, 2-12-13, Staten Island Advance Blog [http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/02/the_new_feud_un-returned_phone.html]).
It also looks like, the old Guy remembered his seemingly ironic remarks to Eaton, or maybe he didn’t. In any case he looks like he’s in it for Carrion. According to a pied quote on the Post blog, Molinari supposed said, “I’m backing Carrion. I’d like to see Adolfo Carrion become the candidate of the Republican Party.... Carrioi [sic] is a fine man. I welcome the opportunity to have a Latino head the Republican ticket in New York City....” (“Staten Island GOPer Molinari dumps support for Lhota, backs Carrion for mayoral nomination” by Carl Campanile, 2-12-13, NY Post [http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/staten_island_nomination_molinari_9TEe4M15vwgPD8b9oIvffO]
Other than a bizarrely conceived sort of “Affirmative Action” for an Hispanic candidate on the Republican Line, can Molinari or Eaton come up with another reason that Adolfo Carrion might be the right fit as the GOP candidate for mayor ? Possibly other GOP leaders are asking the same question. In spite of Guy Molinari’s switch from Lhota to Carrion, the Staten Island County Chairman Robert Scamardella has said he was probably sticking with Lhota as he’d earlier indicated (See “Candidate Lhota loses Moilinari, keeps Scamardella” by Azi Paybarah and Dana Rubenstein, 2/12/13, This is How New York Works – Capital [http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/02/7713061/candidate-lhota-loses-molinari-keeps-scamardella]; “GOP chairman: Molinari flip 'doesn't change anything' ” by Chris Bragg, 2/16/13 Crain’s New York Business – Blogs > The Insider [http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130212/BLOGS04/302129994]).
Perhaps even more important to the Adolfo Carrion campaign for mayor, was the recent appearance of an ad placed by Independence Party leaders indicating their support for Carrion’s obtaining the Independence Party line ( See “Independence Party challenger makes mayoral race a three-way affair – Former Bronx Borough President Alfoldo Carrion Jr. is touted as a likely candidate for the party following full-page ad spotted in free metro daily Wednesday...” by Jonathan Lamire, 2/13/13, NY Daily News [http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/carrion-tapped-indepence-mayoral-challenge-article-1.1263681#ixzz2L8ghzvqe]).
Backfill from 2/14/13: According to the most recent polling data as reported in Celeste Katz’ Daily Politics column/blog, “City Council Speaker Chris Quinn leads the Democratic field for mayor while Republican Joe Lhota runs away with the nomination in a hypothetical GOP primary -- only to get creamed in November -- according to new polling...”
ReplyDeleteThe NY1 - Marist survey data on Republicans looked like this: “... 55% of the city’s registered Republicans remain undecided, but if the primary were held now, 20% would go with Lhota, the former head of the MTA. The rest of the pack is down in the single digits...” (See “Chris Quinn, Joe Lhota Lead Their Packs In Mayoral Matchups, New Polling Shows” by Celeste Katz, 2/14/13, The Daily Politics/ NY Daily News [http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics]).