The NY Post is having a good time over the engagement of Christopher Cox, son of NY State GOP chair Ed Cox and grandson of Richard Nixon, and Andrea Catsimatidis, whose father is Gristede's supermarket chain billionaire (and one-time sorta mayoral hopeful) John Catsimatidis. Apparently the coupling of the 31-year-old Cox and 20-year-old Catsimatidis (they met when she was...17...at her high school) has "scandalized Long Island's elite." GOP source snark: "Everyone's snickering behind their back. She's a kid. He brings her to these very staid Republican events and she's in a miniskirt. It's the political equivalent of 'The Addams Family.'"
Cox is running for a Congressional seat on Long Island. According to the Post, the pair met "in April 2008 while he was participating in a mock presidential debate, representing John McCain, at Hewitt, her all-girls high school on the Upper East Side." Apparently a romantic, Cox proposed at Hewitt last month (Hewitt's Linda MacMurry Gibbs confirmed, "It was at 9 at night. We had the proposal on our security cameras"). In turn, NYU student Catsimatidis announced the engagement on Facebook: "Andrea is engaged to the greatest man in the world (besides her father of course!)! YAYYYYYY!!!!! <3"
A "high-ranking state GOP official" said Cox was "Not streetwise. Like an old-school stodgy Republican. He's very rigid. I've maybe seen him have one drink at a cocktail party," adding, of course, "his fiancée can't legally drink."
John Catismatidis told the Post's Cindy Adams, "I'm shell-shocked," but, "Chris is one of the nicest kids I've ever met," he said. "Straight-arrow. Clean-cut. Honest as the day is long. It's better than her running around, looking for anything." He doesn't know if Cox has any money, but "Andrea has enough for both of them."
