Finding a candidate to replace Representative Vito J. Fossella, who will step down at the end of the year, is proving much harder than Republican Party leaders ever imagined.
Since Mr. Fossella admitted having a child out of wedlock more than two weeks ago, Republican after Republican, including some of the district's best known elected officials, has opted not to run for his seat. Now Republican leaders are seriously questioning whether they can find a candidate capable of winning a seat that the party has held for 28 years.
"We're hurting," said Guy V. Molinari, the former Staten Island borough president and dean of the island's Republicans. "I think that the Congressional seat is probably the most coveted seat locally. And yet, with the vacancy approaching, those that we thought would be the leading candidates in this case, particularly the incumbent elected officials, are taking a pass."
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Yesterday, Mr. Molinari said that another aspirant had withdrawn his name from consideration: James S. Simpson, administrator of the Federal Transit Administration and a former commissioner of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Meanwhile, Jamshad Wyne, a physician who is the finance chairman of the Staten Island Republican Party, announced over the weekend that he, too, would not be a candidate. Dr. Wyne had considered running and had planned to hold a fund-raising event.
However, there is one newcomer to the race for the Republican nomination: Robert A. Straniere, a former assemblyman who lost the Republican primary for his seat in 2004 to Vincent Ignizio. Mr. Straniere said that although he had been away from politics for several years, he was ready to run for the Congressional seat he had sought twice before. Both times he failed to receive support from the local Republican Party.
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In fact, Mr. Molinari described Mr. Straniere's chances of being supported by the Republican leadership as "impossible." He said that Mr. Straniere "would not be at all acceptable to the Republican Party. I would speculate that 98 percent of the Republican County Committee would say, 'No dice.' They would rather vote for a Democrat than for Straniere." Many Republican officials are still waiting to see what State Senator Andrew J. Lanza decides. Officials close to the senator say he is not inclined to run, in part because he doesn't want to commute between Washington and Staten Island, where his family lives.
Mr. Lanza is also under intense pressure to remain in the Senate. Running for Congress would force him to give up his seat in the Senate at a time when the Democrats, who already control the Assembly, need just two seats to take control of the Senate for the first time in 40 years.
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the GOP is having such a hard time fielding a candidate for this seat. Someone described their predicament to me the other day as finding someone willing to "parachute onto the deck of the Titanic."
The NRCC is at a massive financial disadvantage this year. There just isn't going to be money from DC to support whoever eventually gets the nod to run, especially after they dumped tons of money into three straight special election losses that should probably have never been competitive in the first place. This will likely further suppress the enthusiasm of donors to the NRCC as well as donors to individual candidates. The potential candidates who are remaining on the sidelines know that all to well. They'll be on their own against a cash flush DCCC that can and will support their candidates and can exploit targets of opportunity as they arise. The GOoPs also know that they won't be taking back the majority anytime soon and that they are running for the right to sit in what will be an historically small minority in the House.
Still, this seat was one that the NRCC definitely thought they could mount a credible defense in and it looks increasingly likely that that defense may strangled in the crib as they can't seem to find anyone willing to take up the GOP standard in the 13th. In other words, it's a complete recruiting meltdown, a nightmare, for the GOP, both locally and nationally as regards this seat.
Pretty much.
