Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Jilted!

Like a jilted prom-date left to stand and wait, corsage in hand, date never to arrive, Schmitt through Ed Ward wears his heart on his sleeve in today's Newsday "Neither one of them had the decency to come into his office, after they had been running into the office all week... Neither of them had the decency to call."
Yes, Peter misses Roger and Lisanne. They were such a fixture in his office as they conspired to unseat Presiding Officer Judy Jacobs. Now they are back in the fold and Peter feels betrayed.

Gee, a betrayer feeling betrayed by other known betrayers. Try wrapping your head around that one.
Schmitt expected Corbin to be the 10th vote last week to put him in the Presiding Officer seat. Ward says "It was always understood that Corbin would swing the vote,"
Yeah, Corbin would really want to be the #2 to Peter Schmitt. The whole gambit was for Corbin to be PO. That didn't work out as he was abandoned on the first vote by Schmitt and his rubber-stamp caucus.
Did Schmitt really believe that Corbin would risk losing all party support and have a long line of people ready to primary him?
The Love Affair has ended and it's back to work for the legislators.
For Schmitt, he leaves a little part of his heart behind.......


Cue music and photo montage...
Image hosting by Photobucket
Mem’ries, Like the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were
Scattered pictures,Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were
Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?
Mem’ries, may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it’s the laughterWe will remember
Whenever we remember...
The way we were...
The way we were...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This article could also be about Saratoga County. Leadership who think it’s all about them and are too SELFISH to move on.

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-lipol274643345feb27,0,5238518,print.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
POLITICS & POWER
Party name: Enough of a change?
Rick Brand
Newsday


February 27, 2006

The once mighty Brookhaven Town Republican Committee, in the aftermath of its worst election defeat in 30 years, is about to change its name.

Granted, it is not much of a change.

If the party's 430 committee members agree Wednesday night, the local GOP will henceforth be known as the Republican Party of Brookhaven.

The tattered party will also make changes to its by-laws that backers say will mesh with the town's new council district setup. "It just brings us into the 21st century," said Jesse Garcia, the GOP's executive committee member.

But critics within the GOP say the party needs a sweeping overhaul - starting with the removal of town GOP chairman Eugene Gerrard and his top lieutenant, Charles Lefkowitz.

"If they wanted to make a worthwhile change to the by-laws," said Doug Segall, one critical committee member, "why not a provision that allows you to remove the chairman in the middle of a term."

Gerrard, who is 83, is only months into his second two-year term as party leader - a post to which he was re-elected last September before the local GOP lost races for town supervisor, town clerk, highway superintendent and control of the town board, in the party's worst performance since Watergate. "Gene Gerrard needs to step down. There is absolutely no business rationale for him staying after the drubbing he took," Segall said. "The problem is that the 30-somethings we need to rebuild the party can't take over until the 80-somethings step down."

What makes the fall of Suffolk's largest town GOP so dramatic is that the Brookhaven Republican Committee dominated the political landscape for most of the post-World War II era, and in the 1970s, ran fundraisers for three days straight to accommodate all the contributors. In recent years, the party yielded much of its fundraising role to GOP town supervisors. When the last GOP supervisor, John Jay LaValle, decided not to run for re-election amid a series of town corruption convictions, the party struggled financially, especially since LaValle opposed GOP nominee Edward Hennessey.

Rumors also abound that the name change is connected to part of a plan for the old committee, which is broke, to declare bankruptcy so the party can start fresh. Neither Gerrard nor Lefkowitz returned calls, but party spokesman, Dan Panico, called such talk "100-percent false." He said Gerrard and Lefkowitz personally guaranteed a $100,000 bank loan last fall to finance the campaign and the party is now making "aggressive" efforts to repay, though more than half debt remains.

"The first thing this party needs is solidarity," said Panico. He said Gerrard has given "no indication he will step down and he is committed to rebuilding the organization." He also said party officials are holding informal weekly meetings at party headquarters on Monday nights "to hear the voice of every committee member from the bottom up."

Gerrard backers also say the party leader has reached out to dissidents such as former Brooklyn state Sen. Robert DiCarlo, now a Stony Brook resident, who lost a GOP supervisor primary last fall but netted 45 percent of the vote.

However, DiCarlo called the Valentine's Day dinner meeting "an ambush" where Gerrard showed up with 10 party officials rather than the informal cup of coffee he was expecting. DiCarlo said he has formed a new group, Brookhaven New Republicans, which has about 80 members and is growing. He said the group has developed a platform and will keep putting up candidates to run primaries until the party undergoes an overhaul.

"We now have liberal Democrats running the town, not because people of Brookhaven are liberal Democrats, but because they were fed up with the leadership of the Republican Party," he said.

However, another veteran party activist, Joan-Therese Hudson, said Gerrard is not responsible for the party's woes, has put himself on the line by guaranteeing loans, and has the trust of most party members. "I think people are willing to give Gene a chance," she said, adding, "The people who are left want to put the party together, not tear it apart."
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.