Republican Challengers Ready To Take On Dems

The mayor made the embarrassing admission on Monday that the Democratic candidates for city comptroller and Public Advocate, who will be elected in special runoff elections next Tuesday are "running against nobody, I assume", according to a Daily News story. Mayor Michael Bloomberg may not know it, but he's topping a Republican ballot line in the November elections that has challengers from the top of the ticket on down to races for Queens borough president and six city council seats.

The mayor made the embarrassing admission on Monday that the Democratic candidates for city comptroller and Public Advocate, who will be elected in special runoff elections next Tuesday are "running against nobody, I assume", according to a Daily News story.

When a reporter enlightened him, he admitted, "I just don't know who they are."

They are Joe Mendola, a Greenwich Village attorney, running for city comptroller, and Alex Zablocki, of Staten Island, running for Public Advocate.

Mendola and Zablocki will oppose either John Liu or David Yassky on the comptroller ballot line and Councilmember Bill de Blasio or Mark Green, who are in the runoff election for Public Advocate.

In the Queens races, Robert Hornack is the Republican candidate against Democrat Borough President Helen Marshall, who's running for a third term.

In the city council races, the GOP candidates are:

•Dan Halloran versus Kevin Kim in the 19th District (Bayside).

•Peter Koo versus Yen Chou in the 20th District (Flushing).

•Tom Dooley versus Peter Vallone Jr. in the 22nd District (Astoria).

•Angelo Maragos versus Jimmy Van Bramer, who won the Democratic primary in the 26th District (Long Island City) last Tuesday.

•Tom Ognibene, a former councilmember opposing Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley in the 30th District (Glendale). We're sure the mayor knows who this is— he endorsed Ognibene in this race last Thursday.

•And Councilmember Eric Ulrich, the only Republican presently in the council who faces Frank Gulluscio, the Democratic choice in the 32nd District (Ozone Park/Howard Beach).

According to reports, Vince Tabone, executive vice chairman of the Queens GOP, feels the party has high hopes of winning at least three city council seats by taking the Ulrich, Ognibene and Halloran races.

Ulrich won the post in a special election when the district's former representative, Joseph Addabbo Jr., won a state senate seat, so, for a change, a Republican will be the incumbent and have a slight edge in that election.

Ognibene should have a good chance of unseating Crowley. He held the Glendale/Ridgewood/Maspeth seat for about 10 years after winning it in an early 1990 election. He still has high name recognition throughout the district.

However, Crowley won't be a pushover. In the short period of time she has been representing the district since winning it in a special election, she has been a very visible representative, attending to every issue that comes up.

As for Halloran, he will be facing a newcomer, just as he himself is. His Democratic opponent, Kevin Kim, was an underdog going into last Tuesday's primary election. However, he built up some recognition in the area from working on Congressmember Gary Ackerman's staff.

Like Halloran, however, Kim will be a first-timer seeking the council seat. Halloran will have two other lines on the ballot—Conservative and Independence— and the Auburndale attorney hopes to stir the same Republican embers in the district that sent other Republicans to City Hall.