Is Bronx GOP version a Lhota bull?

Well, one camp says Bronx Republican Party Boss Jay Savino got his arm heavily twisted to dump backing former Bronx Boro Prez Adolfo Carrion, NOT back supermarket and oil billionaire John Catsimatidis and support Joe Lhota for mayor.

But Savino’s camp says no, no, no!

So let’s just tell the tale.

After ex-Dem Adolfo was left with only the Independence Party ballot line as a potential Hispanic vote drainer, Savino then considered backing Catsimatidis, according to sources.

But with Rudy Giuliani pushing his ex-deputy mayor and more recently MTA chairman Lhota, we’re told some heavy duty backroom politics was supposedly put into play, especially since the City Council’s four Republican members recently managed through an obscure legal loophole to seize control of Savino’s prime political job bank: the city Board of Elections, where a number of Bronx Republican minions pull a paycheck.

Bronx Republican Dawn Sandow has been holding down the fort as deputy director there since the 2010 departure under a cloud of Bronx Dem exec director George Gonzalez. Meanwhile, J.C. Polanco, former board president and Bronx GOP rep to the evenly-divided ten-member board, is still waiting – and hoping – for his re-appointment.

“Jay also has a large number of his Bronx people working at the board,” said one source, discussing what the county leader might have to lose. “It sounds like he found himself in a pickle.”

But a source close to Savino (NOT Jay) told us choosing Lhota was strictly on the merits. Okay….

CONGRATS

To Councilman Jimmy Vacca’s longtime chief of staff Jeff Lynch, chosen by the Bronx Democratic Committee to fill the male district leader’s seat in the 82nd Assembly District covering the east Bronx. The job opened up with the recent naming of Frank Randazzo as new Bronx Public Administrator, dealing with the estates of persons who die without wills or are unable to administer their own affairs.

DAVID vs. GOLIATH

While Andrew Cohen appears to be the 500-pound gorilla in the race to fill the Riverdale City Council seat of term-limited Oliver Koppel, with a slew of endorsements just short of the new pope, challenger Cliff Stanton is puffing with some pride over his own fundraising efforts “relative,” as he puts it, to both Bronx and citywide races: Cliff said he’s raised more money – 53Gs – than all but three candidates actively running for City Council seats in the Bronx, along with some other feats of political prowess.

And BTW, Boro Prez Ruben Diaz Jr. added his endorsement of Cohen on Thursday.

ONE-MAN SEDER

Former east Bronx Assemblyman Steve Kaufman tells us he was feeling kinda lonely at his Passover Seder, the only Jew among his guests, and with Greek-American wife Gheri doing the cooking. “I felt like asking, ‘What am I, chopped liver?’”

INNER LAUGH CIRCLE

We confess – but with no regrets – to a brief encounter with Mayor Bloomberg’s girlfriend, Diana Taylor.

It was at last Saturday night’s black-tie Inner Circle show at the NY Hilton, where the city’s political reporters roasting the pols, and the mayor responds at the end with Broadway show cast members.

Maybe it was the tux that put us in the mood, but when we found ourselves standing next to the successful, talented and very attractive Ms. Taylor, we couldn’t resist asking in our best charming voice, “So, what’re you doing after the show?”

She has a great laugh….

COP CORNER

Gimme a break dept. There’s been a lot of ink about the 40th Precinct C.O., Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, being secretly taped by an under-performing cop . The tape wound up at a federal trial over department “quotas” and stop-and-frisk targeting of blacks and Hispanics.

Sorry, but on this one, we gotta side with McCormack, a dedicated, community-oriented pro who makes total sense on the FULL transcript describing precinct robbery patterns involving minority suspects ages 14 to 21.

•Crime blotter. West Bronx Councilman Fernando Cabrera has a bill wending its way through the legislative maze that would let folks check out crime stats in their local nabe. The NYPD posts precinct-wide crime stats on its website, but it also has the local crime numbers available on its computers. Baltimore and Chicago already use the local stats. A series of stories in the Norwood News inspired Cabrera’s legislation.

VINNY WORDS

When last heard from, Vinny Words of Bedford Park was using an air pistol to shoot pigeons trying to get into his apartment after a neighbor began keeping those “doity boids” inside his own apartment.

Vinny sort of looks like actor Joel Grey and can keep you in stitches with his machine-gun mouth tales of the Bronx.

It now seems he’s become a favorite with the locals of Presho, South Dakota, pop. 497.

After a pheasant hunting trip there last year, seems the whole town remembered “that fast–tawking guy from the Bronx” on his latest trip.

Vinny said he was amazed – “Gedouddaheah!” – at all the folks who remembered him from his last foray, especially at the City Bar in downtown Presho – if you could actually call it a downtown in the land of pickup trucks and 4x4s.

The town, named for J. S. Presho, who arrived locally from New York in 1858, does boast former South Dakota congressman Clint Roberts and Don Nankivel, six time National Field Archery Association State Traditional Archery Champion as native sons.

To which it can now add adopted Bronx son Vinny Words.

BRONX BIRTHDAYS

March 20 – Councilman Jimmy (“That’s not acceptable!”) Vacca, the Energizer Bunny of Bronx electeds.