The next president of the United States hasn’t even been decided yet and already the Republican race for term-limited City Councilman Vincent Gentile‘s seat in Bay Ridge is heating up.
That after KCP learned this week that Liam McCabe, co-founder of the Brooklyn South Conservative Club, has quietly changed his party affiliation to Republican. While McCabe could not be reached for comment, sources close to him say that by switching his party affiliation to Republican, he will be able to avoid getting a Wilson Pakula to run in the Republican primary for Gentile’s 43rd Council District seat.
Brooklyn Conservative Party Chair Jerry Kassar said that McCabe informed him he would switch party enrollment and that he was seriously considering a run for the city council seat.
“There are no hard feelings. He (McCabe) felt this was the best route to be seriously considered by the Republican Party for the council seat,” said Kassar, who is the chief of staff for Republican State Senator Marty Golden. “Either Liam or John Quaglione (Golden’s Communication Director) would make a good candidate. Both are well qualified and have similar strengths. The City Council should have young, energetic policy oriented people who know how to get their hands dirty, and both would make excellent city council members, who are strongly opposed to what Mayor de Blasio is doing to this city. Both are highly critical of de Blasio’s policies.”
While McCabe was a Conservative, he has crossed party and long been an operative and worked for Republican candidates. He is currently working on Congressman Dan Donnovan’s re-election campaign.
As such, he’s also drawn support from Kings County Republican Chair Teddy Ghorra.
“We welcome Liam to the party with open arms, and appreciate his skill set and dedication to community service and politics generally and look forward to the road ahead, wherever it may take him,” said Ghorra.
