State and Nassau Republican chairman Joe Mondello, who hasn’t attended a Suffolk GOP fundraiser in at least a decade, will cross county lines to headline the $175-a-head party event.
“I think he wants to be a visible state chairman and meet the troops,” said Harry Withers, Suffolk GOP chairman. “And this will be an easy trip for him as opposed to going to Syracuse.”
Since taking over the state post, Mondello has done at least a half dozen party events across the state and this week will appear at dinners in both Queens and Westchester on the same night. Party sources say the last time Mondello attended a Suffolk event was some time in the 1990s when either John Powell or Howard DeMartini was GOP leader.
Republicans will hold their April 24 event at Shandon Court in East Islip, the same restaurant where GOP Senate hopeful KT McFarland last year intimated that Hillary Clinton was spying on her from a helicopter. There’s no word whether Mondello will wear a tinfoil hat with antenna.
Rick Brand