Thursday, December 14, 2006
Can NY's Republican Party remain alive?
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Two New York State party chairmen left their jobs as the result of the November 2006 election. One, Manhattan Assemblyman Herman (Denny) Farrell did it voluntarily, after heading a campaign effort that elected all of his Democratic candidates and permitted him to retire, at age 74, with all the honors a winning party can bestow to its successful campaign leader. His successor will be chosen mid-December, with Suffolk County chair Richard Schaffer and Erie chair Leonard Lenihan the candidates.
The other, Republican Chairman Stephen J. Minarik Hi, at 46 in the zenith of his working career (he is the Monroe County chair and a principal in the family political consulting firm), has stepped down after the worst defeat that his party has suffered since the Great Depression. Although anti-Bush sentiments may have been the source of the drop in the upstate Republican registrations from a majority measured in hundreds of thousands to one of a few thousands, the back-and- forth in candidate selection by the powers, Governor Pataki, Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and 2008 hopeful Rudy Giuliani, with the arm-twister Minarik executing their orders, greatly contributed to the chaos.
The gubernatorial candidate list, from ex-Massachusetts Governor William Weld, the rich industrialist Thomas Golissano, who would frnance his own campaign, the African-American Secretary of State Randy Daniels, Congressman John Sweeney and Assemblyman Patrick Manning (both lost their jobs in November)
came to finally settle on the Party faithful, Assemblyman John Faso, a worthy fiscal conservative. The senatorial candidates shifted, from Nixon son-in-law Edward Cox and Jeanine Pirro, the latter being moved over to the Attorney General spot and another Yonkersian, John Spencer, taking her place, With a post-election 20- 20 hindsight, it is evident that Faso was wasted; he could have been elected as attorney general or comptroller (his original ambition, years ago), assuring the Republicans of one state-wide office.
Now, the new Republican State Chair has been chosen, the mantle falling on Joseph N. Mondello, age 68, a longtime leader of Nassau County, once the Republican power in the state, the machine that sent Alfonse M. D’Amato to the US Senate and Ralph J. Marino to the NYS Senate majority leadership post. But Bruno toppled Manno, D’Amato lost to Charles Schumer in 1998 and the county sunk into a financial bog, with indebtedness of $3B, its bonds rated at a junk level, until in 2001. Nassau elected a Democratic executive, attorney and accountant Tom Suozzi, who raised taxes, balanced the budget and improved the bond ratings 11 times. But Mondello, friend of the now most powerful Republican in the state, Joseph Bruno, will be the head of the party. This ignores the potential of such young leaders as John Sweeney of Hudson Valley, who lost his 20th District US House of Representatives seat to ex-New Yorker Kristin Gillibrand. Now the New York Congressional delegation has added three Democrats, outranking the Republicans 23 to 6. Serious questions about the two-party system in the state are being raised, with the New York City influence in Albany at a maximum. Let’s examine.
New York City has voted Democratic all throughout its recent history. In national elections of the past 100 years, only three Republicans have won the Presidential vote here, with William Howard Taft beating William Jennings Bryan in 1908, but losing to Woocirow Wilson in 1912. Eight years later, war-weary and League of Nations wary New Yorkers helped elect Warren Harding by a large margin over James Cox, and Calvin Coolidge, who had succeeded after Harding’s death in office, in 1924 decisively beat John W Davis. Since then the only Republican who cane close to winning in NYC was Richard Nixon in 1972, running against the liberal George McGovern.
Despite the overall prevalence of voters registered as Democrats over the years, and the continuous reign of Democrats in Albany, with Al Smith, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Lehman holding sway alter WWI, there was a change in 1943, with Republican reformer DA Thomas E. Dewey elected governor for 10 years. Then came a short term for Democrat W. Averell Harriman, and the pattern of alternating party dominance continued.
From 1958 on,we have had 16 years of Rockefeller and Malcolm Wilson, followed by 20 of Hugh L. Carey and Mario Cuomo, then 12 of George Pataki, and now Eliot Spitzer.
Despite the one-party prevalence in voter registrations, and inflexibility in national elections, the state wide election pattern indicates that a healthy party rotation still exists, the citizenry recognizing that reform governments need be replaced as they deteriorate. As Denny Farrell puts it, to the NY Times; “It was not the end of the Democratic Party in 1994, and it is not the end of the Republican Party now.”
Our local Vincent Albano Republicans and Frank Scala, their affable leader, certainly show no signs of abating.
Can NY’s Republican Party remain alive?
Two New York State party chairmen left their jobs as the result of the November 2006 election. One, Manhattan Assemblyman Herman (Denny) Farrell did it voluntarily, after heading a campaign effort that elected all of his Democratic candidates and permitted him to retire, at age 74, with all the honors a winning party can bestow to its successful campaign leader. His successor will be chosen mid-December, with Suffolk County chair Richard Schaffer and Erie chair Leonard Lenihan the candidates.
The other, Republican Chairman Stephen J. Minarik Hi, at 46 in the zenith of his working career (he is the Monroe County chair and a principal in the family political consulting firm), has stepped down after the worst defeat that his party has suffered since the Great Depression. Although anti-Bush sentiments may have been the source of the drop in the upstate Republican registrations from a majority measured in hundreds of thousands to one of a few thousands, the back-and- forth in candidate selection by the powers, Governor Pataki, Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and 2008 hopeful Rudy Giuliani, with the arm-twister Minarik executing their orders, greatly contributed to the chaos.
The gubernatorial candidate list, from ex-Massachusetts Governor William Weld, the rich industrialist Thomas Golissano, who would frnance his own campaign, the African-American Secretary of State Randy Daniels, Congressman John Sweeney and Assemblyman Patrick Manning (both lost their jobs in November)
came to finally settle on the Party faithful, Assemblyman John Faso, a worthy fiscal conservative. The senatorial candidates shifted, from Nixon son-in-law Edward Cox and Jeanine Pirro, the latter being moved over to the Attorney General spot and another Yonkersian, John Spencer, taking her place, With a post-election 20- 20 hindsight, it is evident that Faso was wasted; he could have been elected as attorney general or comptroller (his original ambition, years ago), assuring the Republicans of one state-wide office.
Now, the new Republican State Chair has been chosen, the mantle falling on Joseph N. Mondello, age 68, a longtime leader of Nassau County, once the Republican power in the state, the machine that sent Alfonse M. D’Amato to the US Senate and Ralph J. Marino to the NYS Senate majority leadership post. But Bruno toppled Manno, D’Amato lost to Charles Schumer in 1998 and the county sunk into a financial bog, with indebtedness of $3B, its bonds rated at a junk level, until in 2001. Nassau elected a Democratic executive, attorney and accountant Tom Suozzi, who raised taxes, balanced the budget and improved the bond ratings 11 times. But Mondello, friend of the now most powerful Republican in the state, Joseph Bruno, will be the head of the party. This ignores the potential of such young leaders as John Sweeney of Hudson Valley, who lost his 20th District US House of Representatives seat to ex-New Yorker Kristin Gillibrand. Now the New York Congressional delegation has added three Democrats, outranking the Republicans 23 to 6. Serious questions about the two-party system in the state are being raised, with the New York City influence in Albany at a maximum. Let’s examine.
New York City has voted Democratic all throughout its recent history. In national elections of the past 100 years, only three Republicans have won the Presidential vote here, with William Howard Taft beating William Jennings Bryan in 1908, but losing to Woocirow Wilson in 1912. Eight years later, war-weary and League of Nations wary New Yorkers helped elect Warren Harding by a large margin over James Cox, and Calvin Coolidge, who had succeeded after Harding’s death in office, in 1924 decisively beat John W Davis. Since then the only Republican who cane close to winning in NYC was Richard Nixon in 1972, running against the liberal George McGovern.
Despite the overall prevalence of voters registered as Democrats over the years, and the continuous reign of Democrats in Albany, with Al Smith, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Lehman holding sway alter WWI, there was a change in 1943, with Republican reformer DA Thomas E. Dewey elected governor for 10 years. Then came a short term for Democrat W. Averell Harriman, and the pattern of alternating party dominance continued.
From 1958 on,we have had 16 years of Rockefeller and Malcolm Wilson, followed by 20 of Hugh L. Carey and Mario Cuomo, then 12 of George Pataki, and now Eliot Spitzer.
Despite the one-party prevalence in voter registrations, and inflexibility in national elections, the state wide election pattern indicates that a healthy party rotation still exists, the citizenry recognizing that reform governments need be replaced as they deteriorate. As Denny Farrell puts it, to the NY Times; “It was not the end of the Democratic Party in 1994, and it is not the end of the Republican Party now.”
Our local Vincent Albano Republicans and Frank Scala, their affable leader, certainly show no signs of abating.
Can NY’s Republican Party remain alive?
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 9:36 AM 
