The ongoing feud between Kings County GOP Chair Craig Eaton and Bay Ridge Sen. Marty Golden – the borough’s highest elected Republican official – is about to go politically ballistic come Wednesday.
That’s when attorney Ted Ghorra, with Golden’s blessing, is set to challenge Eaton for the Brooklyn Republican Party County chairmanship at the party’s bi-annual restructuring convention.
Ghorra, a born and raised Brooklynite now living in Bay Ridge, said he decided to seek the chairmanship after a number of people at the city, state and federal level approached him about the position.
“I am looking forward to working with the many folks in Brooklyn and the surrounding area in an effort to unify and energize the party and move forward as one,” said Ghorra, echoing the sentiments of many Golden supporters, who feel Eaton has not been working hard enough to field full slates of candidates both for district leadership positions or to run against Democrats in general elections.
“There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity on both the micro and macro level. We need to put up good candidates. I want to do outreach to the immigrant community as well. We have a lot to offer and need to communicate a message that should resonate in a strong way to these communities and the young people as well,” said Ghorra.
Ghorra’s challenge will come two years to the day from when Golden unsuccessfully put up Timothy Cochrane — a former Conservative Party congressional candidate for Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst and Staten Island — to try to topple Eaton.
While Golden did not return phone calls, sources close to him say they’ve learned their lesson from that encounter and feel they have more than enough proxy votes of county committee members to replace Eaton this time around.
But Eaton does have his supporters, and one of them said Golden plucked Ghorra out of thin air.
“He (Ghorra) has no political background of activism in the Republican Party in any way, shape or form. There’s a lot of people out there who love Marty Golden, but think it’s nonsense what he’s doing,” said the observer, predicting that Eaton will again come out on top and remain as the party Chair.
And Eaton says he’s up for the challenge as well.
‘”For eight years I’ve been chairman of the Brooklyn Republican Party. He (Ghorra) has shown no interest or activity in helping Republican candidates or volunteering. In politics, chairmanship should not be an entry level position,” said Eaton.
