NY-13: Staten GOP Settles For Straniere, Molinari Fumes

So the Staten Island GOP has finally settled on a candidate — former Assemblyman Robert Straniere, who lost a bitter race for Staten Island’s Borough Presidency in 2001 that left many local party players permanently turned off by him:

Straniere was tabbed by a five-member GOP committee on vacancies last night to replace the late Frank Powers as the party designee for the bi-borough seat. Straniere is now set to battle Dr. Jamshad Wyne, the GOP finance chairman, in a Sept. 9 party primary.

The vote was 4-1 in Straniere’s favor, with only Joseph Borelli, chief of staff to South Shore City Councilman Vincent Ignizio, casting a vote against Straniere.

Ignizio defeated Straniere in a 2004 GOP Assembly primary, ending Straniere’s 24-year career in the Legislature, and last night said that he “will not be supporting Bob Straniere for Congress.”

Straniere has a few more black marks against him, including the fact that he lives outside the district in Manhattan:

On his petitions for the 2008 primary Straniere listed an East Side (Midtown Manhattan) address.

Media reports also indicate that Straniere was fired from a position as assistant counsel with the state Health Department last year after it was discovered he failed to notify the department he also was working at a lobbying firm.

For his part, former Borough President Guy Molinari, who — up until now — had been considered the unofficial leader of Staten Island’s Republicans, is beyond livid:

The Straniere move also drew an acid response from former GOP Borough President Guy Molinari, a longtime Straniere foe.

“I’m terribly outraged by the actions of the committee on vacancies,” said Molinari, who already has pledged to work to remove borough GOP chairman John Friscia and other party leaders when they are up for re-election next year. “They couldn’t have made a worse mistake. The party was already in desperate shape. They’ve all but buried it.” […]

“Two words that strike me: Ethics and morality,” said Molinari. “There have been so many questions raised about ethics in government over the last few months, the last thing we could have expected is to see someone put up for office with serious ethical concerns. That’s mystifying.”

So incensed is Molinari that, in addition to pledging to take out Staten’s GOP chairman, he’s now talking about challenging Councilman Jimmy Oddo for the Borough Presidency next year. Here’s Oddo’s response:

“I guess we all should be grateful that Guy didn’t challenge anyone to a duel,” Oddo said. “I’d hate to go down in history as Staten Island’s Aaron Burr.”

This debacle keeps on getting better by the week.

SSP currently rates this race as “Leans Democratic“.