Paired Interviews with Republicans John Quaglione and Andrew Sullivan have been completed by The Brooklyn Independent GOP Fountainhead --- Both are off and running for Democrat Vincent Gentile's 43rd Council Seat

Two Republicans talk about who they are  ---  and why each of them is the best candidate to take on Councilman Vincent Gentile in the 2013 General Election

It took a while, but earlier today one of my Baker Street Irregulars completed interviewing the Republican candidates running in the 43rd District for the New York City Council, Andrew Sullivan and  John Quaglione.

By prior agreement with both candidates, these brief conversational inquisitions were largely off the record and for background only, the interviews will therefore only serve to guide and animate this post (and the Part II that "follows above"). Since, both of the Republican candidates for City Council from the 43rd District already have substantial  trails of “on the record” remarks or “multiple-sourced”anecdotes, those items will constitute the form and content of what follows. Nonetheless, almost everything that appears in this post (and the Part II that "follows above") was either specifically talked about by the candidates in their interviews or alluded to generally. So even if the quotes might be sourced from a while ago, the Brooklyn Independent GOP Fountain Head does present all that is here as the candidates' current views, and possibly even their very recent statements about the things expressed.

I can say with some confidence that the 2013 race for City Council in the 43d District should be very interesting, but very strange, for everybody directly involved and for a lot of the hangers-on, as well.

Because of the length of this introductory post about the Republican candidates in the 43rd Council District,  I am breaking it into two parts.

Part I  — Background and plans of Andrew Sullivan, prospective Republican candidate for City Council from the 43rd Council District

Since the Hardhat Andy Sullivan chit-chat at the Pegasus Diner took place several weeks ago, he was called by phone for a brief follow-up earlier today. That discussion started with a discussion of the comparative  fund-raising activities of the two candidates.

Needless to say, Andy Sullivan was a little churlish when confronted by the numbers posted by JQ on his Facebook. Sullivan quickly charged that it clearly looked to him like John Quaglione had used his boss, State Senator Marty Golden’s, list of donors. Since we were familiar with some of Golden’s past fund-raising events, it was pointed out to Sully that what was described as John Quaglione’s kick-off event at Vicolo was not nearly on the scale of any of State Senator Golden’s  affairs at Gargiulo’s.  When pressed,  Sullivan admitted that he hadn’t compared the list of Quaglione’s donors with any of Golden’s filings. For his part, Andy Sullivan claimed that his early fund-raising has literally been hamstrung as a result of his recent sports accident. His plans now call for an initial dinner-type get together with a select group of close supporters, coupled with a direct personal outreach to many other smaller donors. He said that he is fully aware of the NYC matching funds rules and filing requirements and that he expects to have sufficient funds for the kind of campaign that he wants to run.

Hardhat Andy Sullivan believes that he has a compelling message to bring to the still-aspiring middle-class workers and small business owners who live all around Bay Ridge and the nearby  neighborhoods of Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst-Bath Beach.

He’s ready to show people, who are basically just like himself, that he has had the drive to be “a community activist for decades” and that he has been “a leader on [ ] controversial issues [who has] brought solutions where others have failed.”  It’s almost second nature to the man to go through his personal history of being “a 9/11 survivor and a 9/11 rescue and recovery worker”; who in the years following 9/11 took “all his energy and organizing skill” to push the start of construction of the “Freedom Tower” and "to succeed in stopping  the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ in its tracks after all the influential, wealthy and politically powerful had said ‘it was a done deal’.”

Andy Sullivan says that his constituents will see what he is capable of accomplishing  right away after he’s elected.  If he becomes “City Councilman Andrew Sullivan,” he says that his motto will be “Taking Care of Business” and his placards with that slogan prominently displayed will be placed at locations where he has gotten specific jobs done for the people of his district.

Andy Sullivan believes he’s the right man to replace Vincent Gentile as the Councilman for Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and Bath Beach, because he is the only person that can bring his diverse a set of special skills and life experiences to the job of councilman. Andy has been a full-emersion resident in the Southwestern part of Brooklyn for most of his life. Not only has he been a graduate of OLA Grammar School and Bishop Ford HS, he participated in his father’s business which was operated locally, and he has been an owner-operator of two neighborhood bars in Bay Ridge. Hardhat Andy also knows what it is be a middle-class union construction worker who depended on the metropolitan transit system to get to jobs in and around the city, and to get home after a hard days work. On top of all that he says that he has been a mixed martial arts fighter, inventor of a patented construction tool, a professional interviewer, spokesman and blogger and a musician.