Yep: Quentin Kopp, the 82-year-old former supervisor, former state Senator, retired Superior Court judge and political fixture in this city for four decades, is being talked about as a potential challenger to the new district attorney, George Gascon.
I just talked to Kopp, and he confirmed that a lot of people have approached him about running in November, and while he’s not a candidate at this point, he hasn’t ruled it out. “If I do run — and I have to think about the rigors of a campaign — I would run on a platform of using the district attorney’s office to root out political corruption,” he said.
Kopp has always been fairly conservative on law-and-order issues and is a supporter of the death penalty. His political base has always been on the West side of town. But in a typically untraditional fashion, Kopp has become a bit more liberal in his later years — and has always been a strong supporter of open government and a foe of political sleaze.
And he seems to be in good health and certainly hasn’t lost his political vigor. (And, he reminds me, the legendary DA of New York, Robert Morgenthau, served past his 90th birthday.) So Kopp would be a formidable candidate in what’s shaping up to be a fairly large field.
Never a dull moment in this town.