From what I see, it's not official yet. At least three other Republicans are still vying for the nomination. It will be up to the two (unfortunately weak) county organizations to pick a candidate. There are no primaries in a special election in NY.
Bob Turner gamely took on Weiner last year, and actually managed to put the race on the radar screen. However, the NY-09 is one of those districts in which we need to eliminate any excuse that otherwise conservative voters have for voting for the Democrat once again. Just like running someone who is less than 100% pro-life will bring about our defeat in blue-collar Catholic districts (even against a pro-abortion Democrat), since “neither one really follows Catholic teaching on abortion, so I might as well vote for the Democrat who .follows Church teachings on economic issues [sic],” the GOP failing to run a Jewish candidate in the NY-09 will cause enough Jewish voters to cast their votes for the Jewish Democrat in spite of them agreeing with the Republican on more issues. I have nothing against Bob Turner, but I think that his high-water mark would be 46%.
The candidate I would love to see run for the GOP is Orthodox Jewish community leader (and now judge) Noach Dear, who is a former Democrat who ran against Weiner several times in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, but since we don’t know in which districts the Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish communities will be placed for 2012 (Dem redistricters will likely want to split them up again, perhaps among 3 or 4 districts this time), he may not be willing to give up his judgeship to run.
I think Turner is a poor choice, so I’m glad to hear there are others interested. The character of the race has changed since last time; it is now very high-profile and needs a high-profile contender. Andy Sullivan would be great.