In 46th AD, after Brook-Krasny’s departure, “The race is on and it looks like ‘Heartbreak’ – And the loser takes it all...”

In spite of a looming opportunity in 46th AD for another Special Election win, many in the Brooklyn GOP seem ready to sit this one out

The 46th Assembly District is one of the few ADs in Brooklyn where the Republican Party might be able to be competitive when there is an “open” seat —  especially, if the AD seat is up for grabs in a special election.

CRAIG EATON’S BIG DECISION 

Last week the blog, “Kings County Politics,” posted an article by Lenore Fedow, in which she discussed the prospect of various political types in an expected special election “... to replace soon to be stepping down 46th District Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny....”  (See “Scrum Is On In 46th District Assembly Race” by Lenore Fedow,  June 18, 2015, Kings County Politics [http://www.kingscountypolitics.com/scrum-is-on-in-46th-district-assembly-race/]).

Here’s how Ms. Fedow described the bag of mixed nuts that might be up for such a run,  “... [a]n Iraq War veteran and hero... [a] chief of staff [to an elected official] with a high-powered political operative boyfriend... [and a] young lawyer with smarts and more political juice than a Rastafarian diet restaurant...”    —   With this proviso, by Fedow,  “ ... [a]nd that’s just the rumored frontrunners....”

Interestingly, an old wag friend of mine sent me the link to the Fedow post on the “King County Politics” blog with the notation “Eatons Big Decision?” [sic]; even more interesting, this guy is a long-time Bay Ridge Dem activist (No, not the most obvious one — or even the second most obvious —  probably, no definitely, the third most obvious.......)  And he thinks with the “perfect” candidate, the GOP can grab a NYS  Assembly seat “... with the current environment in that district....”

When this “special” finally comes up, and it looks like it will be sometime soon, an Executive Committee of the Kings County Republican party led by Craig Eaton will have to decide whether it wants to run a Republican Candidate in the 46th Assembly District, and  who that candidate might be. On the other hand, the GOP County Leader and his Executive Board can decide to pass the choice down to the AD level and have the State Committee Members for the 46th AD poll their County Committee to select a candidate.

The latter choice is unlikely, insofar as both 46th AD State Committee Members were mentioned as possible candidates for the NYS Assembly in the post by Lenore Fedow  – Marcus Nussbaum and Lucretia Regina-Potter. Some in the Nussbaum and Regina-Potter camps as well as others on the Brooklyn GOP Executive Committee might view a decision by either or both Nussbaum and/or Regina-Potter as a conflict of interest, mitigating against their being directly involved in the selection process, other than as members of the much bigger and more diverse Executive Committee.

In addition, in a brief conversation with GOP Chairman Craig Eaton, he indicated to me that he intended to schedule a meeting of his Executive Committee as soon as the timetable for a special election is announced. He would go no further than to say that there is interest by some to run a strong GOP candidate for the seat.

THE POTENTIAL CROP OF GOP CANDIDATES IS BIGGER THAN THOSE MENTIONED BY THE KINGS COUNTY POLITICS ARTICLE 

Other GOP candidates for a special election in the 46th A.D. could reasonably include one or more of the following: John Quaglione, Stamatis “Steve” Lilikakis, Tom McCarthy, and even “Hard Hat” Andy Sullivan. All have run within all, or  significant parts of, the 46th Assembly District in the last few years  —  and all of them, as official Brooklyn GOP candidates for public office, have shown some ability to pull a vote against tough Democratic Party opposition  —   usually, by a well-established, long-time incumbent in the contested office. (btw, the “perfect” candidate described by my Democrat friend is none of the GOPers mentioned as possible candidates in this article, or Lenore Fedow’s for that matter.

A COUPLE OF REPUBLICAN WAGS WITH NO DEARTH OF OPINIONS ABOUT THE 46th AD RACE

I talked about this district with a couple of folks who have been in and around the Brooklyn GOP for quite some time. The most quotable item is this, “The Republican Party, especially in New York State, and most especially in Brooklyn, never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity....  I am pretty sure that applies this time around, too.”  When I described my Dem friend’s thoughts about a “perfect candidate” this particular wag said,  “A real ‘perfect candidate’ will have to be able to pay for his (her) own race or do their own top drawer fund raising.” The wag explained that the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (“RACC”) has very little money to spend on something like this, so it will have to be a self-funded deal. Since this person is a real nuts’n’bolts type, I took all of that to mean that if you came up with a so-called “perfect” candidate with a full funding source, a successful special election race in the 46th AD would be doable.

The other person was also somebody that had a GOP insiders outlook.  He was much less sanguine about any effort in the 46th AD.  The first observation was that the district is quite divided between the Golden and Eaton factions of the Brooklyn GOP.  Furthermore, if the GOP candidate is not one out of the LaGuardia Club, that club will not lift a finger for any other candidate. The second point was that the Brooklyn GOP team, which was so successful in the special elections for Turner for Congress and Storobin for the State Senate has largely been dissipated, and very few of the participants in those past special elections would be inclined to go into a new “special” in the 46th AD.