Back from the Dead? GOP Candidates Vie for House Seat

By [Dan Rivoli] The GOP used to rule the [â??Silk Stocking district](http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=NY&district=14), a nickname for the more affluent parts of the Upper East Side. But the primacy of liberal Republicans in this area is getting to be as outdated as top hats and monocles. Since Carolyn Maloney"s 1992 victory over incumbent Rep. Bill Green, Republicans were last seen holding office in 2003, when John Ravitz retired from the State Assembly after losing a special election for a State Senate seat. For the past several years, the party has unsuccessfully run candidates for most local elections. This year, though, two young GOP candidates think the tide may be changing, and argue that they can build a bipartisan coalition based on supporting business and the financial industry. Our Town spoke with both contenders about their plans for the district, which covers the East Side, parts of the Lower East Side and western Queens.

Ryan Brumberg At McKinsey & Company, the management consulting firm where he worked for three years, Ryan Brumberg says he helped stop businesses from hemorrhaging money and was a project leader on a successful merger. â??In consulting, we try to solve problems. It"s nonpartisan, said Brumberg, 28. â??Why is it that health care and Medicaid is broken? How can we solve that problem? Brumberg, who recently left his consulting gig to seek the Republican nomination for Congress, is bringing that philosophy to the campaign trail. The Great Neck, Long Island-native grew up in a Democratic household. He got his bachelor"s degree at Columbia University and graduated from Stanford Law School in 2007. Though he has a â??pox on both their houses mentality toward the two parties in Congress, Brumberg is critical of Maloney"s support for most of her party"s agenda in Congress. He particularly has problems with the new financial regulations, health care system reforms and taxes on capital gains of the country"s top earners. â??Maloney votes with the Democratic Party line 99 percent's clearly that"s not in the best interest of our district, Brumberg said. That disconnect, he believes, will be the key to his winning in November against a Democratic opponent. Maloney is favored to win her primary against hedge fund attorney Reshma Saujani, who is basing her campaign on supporting new business and increasing investments of start-up companies. Brumberg thinks Saujani"s insurgent candidacy will help â??split the party in half. In his arithmetic, the rest of his winning coalition will be Republicans, anti-incumbent voters and pro-business Democrats. â??I"m a true centrist. I take the best of the Republicans and the best of the Democrats, Brumberg said. â??And a vast majority has those views. Dino LaVerghetta [caption id="" align="alignright" width="400" caption="Dino LaVerghetta is a self-described libertarian-leaning Republican and fiscal conservative."][/caption] Dino LaVerghetta, a 28-year-old Republican attorney, has found support for his Congressional campaign from an unusual voting bloc. Last month, the Upper East Side resident and lawyer at a white-shoe firm held a press conference at Sunpoint Spa to denounce a 10 percent tax on tanning salons in the health care form bill. His campaign also set up a website, www.repealthetantax.org, to build opposition and raise campaign money. The U.S. Senate opted for the tanning tax over the so-called â??Bo-tax on cosmetic procedures to help fund health care reforms. â??The [tanning] industry is made up almost exclusively of small business owners and they don"t have a strong lobby, LaVerghetta said. Though Rep. Carolyn Maloney did not sponsor the Senate"s tanning tax, she has introduced bipartisan legislation requiring better cancer warnings and allowing the Food and Drug Administration to limit the amount of UV rays tanning beds can emit. LaVerghetta is a self-described libertarian-leaning Republican and fiscal conservative, as well as an ardent gay-rights supporter. He says repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, would be his top priority. Raised in Upstate New York"s Putnam County, LaVerghetta received his law degree from New York University and recently took a leave of absence from his firm, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, to run a full campaign. Like Maloney"s Democratic opponent, Reshma Saujani, LaVerghetta believes the Congresswoman has become a reliable Democratic vote rather than an independent voice. â??It"s come to a point where at least I think she represents the interest of the party, not necessarily the people, said LaVerghetta, who is seeking the Libertarian and Independence party endorsements. â??It"s the independence and new blood argument more than anything else.