Grocery CEO Turns To GOP For Mayor's Race

By GRACE RAUH, Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 12, 2007

Supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis is gearing up for a likely mayoral campaign, yesterday filing papers to join the Republican Party.

Mr. Catsimatidis, the chairman and CEO of Red Apple Group and a longtime Democrat, is trying to cast himself as the next Mayor Bloomberg and said he thinks New Yorkers want another businessman running City Hall.

"I've made a lot of money and I've done very well," said Mr. Catsimatidis, 59, who is worth $2.1 billion, according to the 2007 Forbes 400 list. "The next mayor should make $1 a year and shouldn't be another career politician."

Mr. Catsimatidis, a longtime supporter of both Senator and President Clinton, said his political views, which he described as moderate, have not changed. He said he is pro-business and pro-people.

The party switch was anticipated, as Mr. Catsimatidis has said that if he runs for mayor, he would do so as a Republican. In August, he hired a Republican political operative, Robert Ryan, as an adviser.

The chief executive of Time Warner, Richard Parsons, has also been named as a possible 2009 Republican mayoral candidate, along with the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly. Mr. Kelly is not affiliated with a political party and Mr. Parsons is a Republican. In a letter sent to the chairmen of the city's Republican county committees and local Republican elected officials, Mr. Catsimatidis announced that he was becoming a Republican and he invoked the administrations of Mayor Giuliani and Mr. Bloomberg, writing that they "showed the nation and the world that common-sense Republican principles could tame a city that was viewed as unmanageable and had become synonymous with all that was wrong with urban America."

By running as a Republican, Mr. Catsimatidis would avoid competing in what is expected to be a crowded Democratic primary. The speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, Comptroller William Thompson Jr., Rep. Anthony Weiner, and the president of the Bronx, Adolfo Carrion Jr., are among the likely Democratic candidates.

Mr. Bloomberg is a former Democrat who ran for mayor on the Republican ticket in 2001 and 2005.

In June, he left the Republican Party, fueling speculation that he is considering running for president as an independent.