Mele Leaves Race and Endorses Westchester Republican

BY EVAN WECHMAN

In 2010, Republican Tea Party candidate Anthony Mele defeated the local GOP machine in a primary and then ran against incumbent Democrat Eliot Engel for his 17th District Congressional seat.

Although he lost handily to the longtime incumbent, Mele had stated he planned to run for the seat again, once again battling the GOP establishment for the nomination if necessary. On Sunday Mele announced he’s had a change of heart and has decided instead to endorse Rye Town Supervisor Joe Carvin; a move he hopes will help to unite the Republican Party.

The Chestnut Ridge firebrand Mele said he will ask his Republican colleagues to support Carvin for the new 17th District which no longer is in Eliot Engel’s zone, but instead will be aligned with another longtime Democratic incumbent Nita Lowey.

Mele’s stance is in sharpt contrast to the 2010 convention when his candidacy caused a GOP schism, and he eventually went on to defeat machine-backed York Kleinhandler, ruffling a lot of feathers along the way.

Lawrence Stone, a spokesperson for Mele, said his boss is stepping aside as “an act of selflessness in a time when people are consistently doing the opposite.”

Mele, who is a U.S. military veteran and a constitutionalist, gave Joe Carvin a copy of the well respected document when he greeted him Sunday. “Let this be your guide,” he told his Republican ally.

Before handing the microphone over to him, Mele elaborated that the citizens of the U.S. must push back the increasing weight of the federal government and resist their (the U.S. government) constant “bossing us (the people) around as if we were their slaves.”

Carvin’s brother Michael is one of the Washington D.C. based attorneys arguing against Obama’s individual health care mandate law before the U.S. Supreme Court. Likewise, Joe said that “Obama Care” must be defeated and that the president “passed the most far reaching legislation in American history,” and without any Republican support. He added that “Obama Care took a broken sysytem and made it worse.”

As a result, according to Carvin, the stakes are very high this election season and the correct thing to do is to put decisions such as health care in front of the consumer.

The GOP county conventions were held this week in Rockland and Westchester.

  anthony mele, rockland county, westchester county