NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to meet GOP about run for Mayor

Party leaders confident that Kelly will agree to run for them in 2013

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New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly

Photo by Marc Asnin/Redux

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GOP leaders will meet with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly next month to seek to convince him to run for mayor of New York in 2013.

Former Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari said Kelly has agreed to meet  top Republican leaders to discuss the issue.

“We would like to see him think more seriously about running for top office,” said Molinari.

Top political columnist Fred Dicker of the New York Post has written that top GOP figures in New York are pushing hard for  Kelly to run for Mayor.

Polls have placed Kelly ahead of all comers to succeed Michael Bloomberg.

His entry into the race would be a major blow for fellow Irish American and  front runner Christine Quinn.
Columnist Fred Dicker wrote in the New York Post on Monday  that the GOP are quietly confident that Kelly will run as a Republican..

'I think Ray Kelly can be talked into running,' one source said, 'and I wouldn't have said that a year ago.'

In response to the renewed speculation former GOP chairman and statewide 'advisory committee' leader William Powers told the New York Post , 'I will be talking to the county leaders in the city about getting behind Ray Kelly, and I think he could defeat City Council Speaker Christine Quinn or one of the other liberal Democrats who are looking to run.

“ I think he'd get a lot of outer-borough support and the backing of Democrats who have voted for Rudy (Giuliani) in the past.' Currently Kelly isn't an official member of any political party.

Kelly was non committal on a local radio show on Monday saying he was flattered but had not thought deeply about it.

Former Mayor Ed Koch however stated Kelly would be the best candidate.

Current Democratic favorite City Speaker Christine Quinn long ago amassed the maximum amount for the primary and is looking like a major opponent for any GOP challenger.

Meanwhile Kelly has come in for sustained and growing criticism from the left  about his department's tactics. The widespread surveillance of Muslim businesses and places of assembly have raised ire in many quarters, as has the number of stop-and-frisks endured by men of color throughout the city.

Powers scoffs at these charges however, in siting there is campaign in the media to stymie Kelly's potential political momentum. '

“When I read the awful hatchet jobs that are being done on Ray, in The New York Times, in New York magazine, by the Associated Press, to see how he's been treated when he's a national hero, I know that it’s being done by the liberals who are trying to stop Ray Kelly,' Powers said.

Kelly's approval ratings have remained strong. And with polls indicating an early advantage for Democrats, he's the one candidate that conservatives believe will stand a good chance again their eventual nominee.

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