• Gary Graziano intends to seek the Republican nomination for Mayor. (Adding slight credence to this rumor: Graziano was sighted on Tuesday at Cascades chatting with County GOP chair Greg Fingar, best known for his heavyhanded efforts in 2009-2010 to disenfranchise dual residency voters.) Graziano served briefly as Police Commissioner during Rick Scalera’s 2002-2003 term, and is a district liason for Assemblyman Marcus Molinaro, while also running a human resource and payroll service out of Dick Koskey's Union Street office.
• Council President Don Moore has told several friends and Democratic committeemen that he's ruled out the idea of running for Mayor. Indications are that Moore will either try to retain his Council role, or else seek the better-paid top position at the Hudson Development Corporation, recently vacated by Peter Markou following his successful run for Greene County Treasurer.
• Two others also have their eye on the HDC job: 1st Ward Alderman Sarah Sterling and City Treasurer Eileen Halloran. Meanwhile, both Sterling and her fellow 1st Ward Alderman Geeta Cheddie (who was squeezed out of her Board of Elections Deputy Commissioner position) are said by some to be interested in Halloran's existing position.
• Former Mayor Kenny Cranna, who served in 2000-2001 but did not run for re-election after torching virtually all of his bridges to supporters, is contemplating another Mayoral run, as is unsuccessful 2007 candididate Mike O'Hara. Neither strikes this observer as a terribly serious contender—though Cranna at least could count on support from the small but very reliable bloc of voters who frequent the Hudson Islamic Center, many of whose adherents feel a sense of loyalty to Cranna due to his perceived help in establishing the Center.
• Another potential contender: Daniel Nilsson, proprietor of Da|Ba restaurant and the son of Rangers hockey star Ulf Nilsson.
• GOP standardbearer Graziano would appear to be Scalera’s personal choice of successor, though others expect “Ricky” (who has been a member of virtually every political party over the years) to temporize with the Hudson Dems at least as long as it takes to secure a nomination to run for 5th Ward supervisor against his former ally Bart Delaney.
• In a Q&A on a theater blog several weeks ago—an “interview” which reads more like a TSL press release, with no uncomfortable questions asked—Linda Mussmann stated that “Running for Mayor is not something I am thinking about now but is always an option that is open to me.” (Among many other things, the interviewer fails to realize that most of the Time & Space Limited board resigned after Mussmann broke her 2007 promise to them not to continue a third losing campaign if she lost the Democratic primary.)
Little of the above (except the Fingar-Graziano sighting, and the TSL Q&A) can be 100% verified; but these rumors do have more than one reasonably credible source... There are, naturally, many other names bobbing around, as typically happens when a large number of incumbents signal that they will either not run again or seek a different office...
Since the picture seems to be changing almost by the hour, keep the hatches battened down and your eyes on the tide charts, as this Hudson election cycle promises yet another choppy ride.
