Anagnostakis enters race for Bill Larkin’s Senate seat

May 09--Orange County Legislator Mike Anagnostakis entered the race to succeed retiring state Sen. Bill Larkin on Wednesday, announcing his candidacy in a press release that cast his Republican rival for the seat as the party insiders' choice and himself as an independent-minded alternative for voters.

Anagnostakis, a Town of Newburgh Republican serving his ninth year on the county Legislature, said he will forego the convention next week at which Orange County Republican Committee members will endorse their preferred candidates for state offices. Party leaders, and Larkin himself, already endorsed Tom Basile, a communications consultant and town councilman from Rockland County, at a rally in Newburgh last weekend for his campaign for the 39th Senate District.

"Let's be very clear, the overwhelming majority of rank and file GOP Committee members are good, hardworking Republicans," Anagnostakis said in his statement. "But the insiders, in the infamous tradition of Boss Tweed politics, have connived for months, behind the scenes, to advance their hand-picked yes-man puppet, and will use the convention as a coronation."

Anagnostakis' announcement sets the stage for a Republican primary between him and Basile on Sept. 13. No Democrats have joined the race yet, although Assemblyman James Skoufis, a Woodbury Democrat, has opened a campaign account for the 39th Senate District and said he will announce next week if he'll run.

Larkin, a Cornwall-on-Hudson Republican who's been a senator and assemblyman for four decades, announced last week he won't seek a 15th Senate term, creating a rare opening for a seat he has held with no close election challenges.

Basile campaign spokesman Bob Driscoll responded to Anagnostakis by saying Basile had earned broad support by "cultivating strong relationships," while Anagnostakis had courted publicity and was "more interested in fighting for himself" than protecting taxpayers.

"If his rambling statement this morning is any indication, former Democrat Mike Anagnostakis is unhinged and would willingly play into the hands of liberal NYC Democrats to feed his own ego," Driscoll said. "Former Democrat Mike Anagnostakis has a long-standing reputation for political opportunism and grandstanding. It's sad and not what our families and businesses need in their Senator."

Anagnostakis has bucked Republican leaders on several high-profile issues since joining the Legislature in 2010, making it improbable they would have supported his bid for Senate. He pushed for county officials and legislators to contribute to the cost of their health insurance; fought efforts by two Republican county executives to privatize the county nursing home; and initiated a 2013 law that has limited how much campaign money the county executive can accept from county contractors.

Perhaps his most well-known cause has been his dogged defense of the Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation, and his exposing the misleading financial claims that were made to justify its sale.

Anagnostakis contends party leaders retaliated by trying to box him out of the Senate race, backing Basile without letting town Republican committees interview the candidates and make their own endorsements. "That was their threat to me for years," he said in his statement. "I wear their actions as a badge of courage."

Basile announced Wednesday the endorsements of the Conservative Party chairmen of the three counties in the 39th Senate District, which consists of 10 towns and the City of Newburgh in Orange County and two towns each in Ulster and Rockland.

[email protected]

___

(c)2018 The Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y.

Visit The Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y. at www.recordonline.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.