Rockland County Republicans will be gathering tonight in Nanuet to nominee candidates for Assembly and Congress, but they will not be anointing a replacement for Sen. Tom Morahan, who announced this afternoon he will not seek re-election this fall.

“The senator asked me about a week and a half ago to give him some more time to see if he could get himself together to run, so I removed him from the agenda,” Rockland County GOP Chairman Vincent Reda told me during a brief telephone interview.

“Then he made up his mind; I got the call about two hours ago. He said he would like to run again, but he physically can’t at this time. So he’s going to step aside, and hopefully we will be able to retain the seat.”

Reda said this is a “very sad day” for him because he and Morahan have been friends for three decades – “I ran his first campaign when he ran for the Legislature,” the chairman recalled. “It’s not really a political tie. It’s more like a family thing.”

In order to give anyone interested in running for Morahan’s seat time to reach out to committee members and make their case, Reda has decided to postpone the vote on a Senate nominee until June 7 – after the state GOP convention in Rye.

I noted to Reda that the Senate Republicans seem to have already settled on a favorite: Rockland County Executive Scott Vanderhoef. Reda insisted he doesn’t have a favorite, but also said there are a number of would-be contenders, adding rather pointedly: “The Senate Republicans don’t vote in Rockland – with all due respect to them.”

Other potential GOP contenders, according to Reda, include: Clarkstown Councilman Frank Borelli, Rockland County Legislature Deputy Minority Leader Ed Day, Minority Leader Doug Jobson, Orangetown Town Supervisor Paul Whalen, and Stony Point Town Supervisor Bill Sherwood, who is a former state Supreme Court justice.

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