Mondello and Skelos: the Democrats Dream Team

Bill Hammond from the NY Daily News writes "Joe Mondello is vowing to serve out his full term as state GOP chairman, and party members across the state are cheering.
Democratic Party members, that is.
After all, what's not to like about Mondello's record, if you're a Democrat?
He just quarterbacked New York's Republicans to a historic drubbing on Election Day.
His team forfeited majority control of the state Senate for the first time in 43 years. It also gave up another three of New York's congressional seats, leaving them with just three of 29 in the House delegation.
Mondello has brought the same Midas touch to his 25 years as Nassau County GOP chairman. The once-dominant Nassau machine self-destructed on his watch, losing both the county executive's office and the Legislature after generations of dominance. This year, for the first time in modern history, Democrats outnumber Republicans in Mondello's home county.
Best of all, from the Democratic perspective, Mondello remains deep in denial about why his party keeps losing elections.
Mondello tries to blame this year's devastating setbacks on the "Obama tsunami." In fact, New York Republicans have sunk their own chances by completely abandoning the fiscally conservative principles that once defined their party.
"Mondello refuses even to acknowledge this ideological drift, much less showing any signs of reversing the trend.
A statement last week exemplified his cluelessness.
"You know those new, young voters who came out to the polls for the first time to find the name Barack Obama and then voted Democratic?" he began. "They are Republican voters. They don't know it yet, but they will find themselves looking at the Republican line in due time."
Now there's a strategy for you: Don't bother coming up with fresh ideas. Just sit on your hands and wait for the legions of young, idealistic voters to grow old and start voting Republican out of spite.
He went on to assert, "Democratic ideology is, and always has been, the creation of big government, requiring an ever increasing percentage of your personal disposable income."
Maybe he hasn't been following the headlines out of Albany lately - because that description fits the Senate's outgoing Republican majority to a T.
Under Majority Leader Dean Skelos, Mondello's Nassau ally, Senate Republicans have shown again and again that they can spend every bit as recklessly as, if not more recklessly than, Albany Democrats. And that's saying a lot.
"Mondello, under pressure, has agreed to appoint a task force to conduct a "strategic review" of the party, which is a start.
But it's hard - in fact, impossible - to imagine a veteran like Mondello suddenly changing his stripes and leading New York's GOP where it needs to go.
And unless that happens, the Democrats can look forward to dominating New York politics for years to come."