Speaking of wondering, we have spent the past week wondering what will happen now with Sharon Graff's candidacy and how her defeat in the Democratic primary will effect the outcome of the race in November. Don't forget, Graff still has THREE LINES going into the November election, ( wfp, woman's equality, Green). There will be a lot of pressure for Graff to get off those lines and support McGinty especially being that Graff was helped and backed by the Democrat party and lost, she sorta owes them to do the right thing. However, she sorta owes the other three political party's that backed her too. As a lawyer she is in a unique position to get off the minor lines and run for a Judgeship in a different area, to free up the lines for McGinty. Or Graff could move out of the county but traditionally the party will meet with her and the minor party bosses and get her to run for an obscure Judgeship in Watertown or something. Here's the thing, we know the Green party is not doing that, whether Graff runs or not she will appear on their line in November and the Green party has a really good placement on the ballot, they are Row c I believe. The Working Families Party shockingly we hear are snubbing McGinty and sticking w Graff as well. The Woman's Equality Party is controlled by Gov. Cuomo who is the Don of Democratic party in our state, so it's safe to say should Graff drop out McGinty would get that line, which would give her two lines, the WEP is a brand new party created by Cuomo to discredit WFP, and are on row h ofthe ballot, so it really is pointless to have that line anyway. Although we have witnessed county wide races come down to less than two hundred votes and in a potential three way race who knows, that line could be influential in this years outcome. Graff could run a crediable campaign with three lines and take her message to the entire electorate and let them decide and not meet with any party bosses behind closed doors, we encourage her to do that, its a big county and she has the qualifications to do the job, let the entire electorate decide. Regardless though Graff's name will still appear on at least two lines in November and that's good news for Peter Matera who will appear on the Republican and Independence lines in November.
In conclusion this race from the start was thought to be won by whoever emerged victorious from the Democratic primary for the simple reason that in a Presidential year you have thousands of additional Democrats and non enrolled leaning Dems that vote for President and vote down the line for the local candidates. However, we hear there is a coordinated effort in the works to stop McGinty. We hear some legal indiscretions from her past and some of her petitions to get on the ballot will be used to discredit her in the coming months. You couple those potential controversies with a three way race whether Graff activily campaigns or not she will take away votes from McGinty and all that could be enough to provide Matera the win. We were surprised McGinty and Graff didn't try to primary for the Independence line, it was up for grabs and they just let Matera have it. Another big benefit for Matera is he has Manetti, Manetti and O' Connor supporting his candidacy which traditionally at least in the last ten years have backed Democrats almost exclusively with the exception of Judge Kavanagh who is an example of a popular qualified Republican that was hit by the Democratic presidential tsunami that hits this area every four years since 9/11 Anyway, Manatti Mannati and O'Connor are the top law firm in Kingston and Ulster County as far as we are concerned and a well respected group of guys, Matera is in good company. On to November!
In other local primaries, Elen DiFalco lost her bid to get on the City of Kingston Democratic committee losing to Brad Will and former Mayor Jim Sottile. We laugh at the people that point out to us that Brad Will got more votes than Sottile.... Yes, he did I think he got six more than Sottile. However what people fail to realize is Brad Will went door to door made phone calls and Sottile agreed to have his name put on the ballot and that was the extent of his campaigning. Sottile was leader of the party as Mayor for ten years, and active as a committeeman and Alderman at Large for many years before that, he's not out there knocking on doors for a fucking committee seat, are you kidding me? Had he lifted a finger he would of been the top vote getter that I gaurentee you. They were not running against each other either, it's two seats per district, Sottile and Will were nominated, DiFalco Primaried and Sottile and Will defeated her.
My favorite primary victory was the wacky Bernie broad that beat Karen MArkesinis for her Democratic state committee seat. Now nothing against Karen but you may remember we did a story about how Hein and Cardinale tried to push out Judy Hakeem who spoke out against Cardinale for his money laundering scheme that the Manhattan DA's office is investigating where in a nut shell, Ulster Dem committee accepted 100k contribution from special interests groups and transferred it to Senator Cecilia Tkaczyk to circumvent election law campaign contributions. It's still on going the investigation and multiple Democratic county committees did this knowingly breaking the law not just Frank Cardinale to be fair. Anyway, Judy Hakeem was a state committeewoman, for years this woman ran the coordinated campaign for the party, worked her ass off for local Demcorats. She's annoying and whiny and happens to be a therapist, thank God not mine or I'd slit my wrists but in small doses she's a great person to talk to and a damn hard worker. As a state committeeman she has a seat on the Ulster County Democratic Executive committee, which is run obviously by Cardinale and made up of local town chairs. There comes a point that Judy at an executive committee meeting busts Cardinale's balls about the money laundering to Senator Tkazyk and they have a fight. At the Democratc convention Cardinale with the blessing of Hein attempts to replace her for Karen Markasenis who they feel they can control better. Cardinale calls Markasinis the preferred candidate of the party to convention goers before a vote is even taken and Karen wins the party's designation. The Parete's and Assemblyman Cahill to their credit defend Judy Hakeem to Cardinale after the convention. Judy decides not to primary Karen who has been vice chair of the party for almost ten years. Some crazy Bernie Sanders broad that no one knows, I don't even know her name comes out of no where and goes out and gets signatures to primary Karen and ends up beating her by a two to one margin. That state committee primary was a referendum on Cardinale and in our opinion with the loss of Graff, the nominee of the party for Surrogate and the loss of Markasinis, which was a direct vote on his leadership, the Deocratic rank and file have sent a clear message, that Frank Cardinale needs to resign as Chair of the Dem party. Besides this recent primary, Dems are losing county wide races consistently since Cardinale has been chair and the GOP has the legislature despite the Dems being the Majority party in this county. It's not like the GOP has a great mind running the show, the Dems despite have a 5k + registration advantage and Roger Rascoe and Kevin Costello running the Republican party still keep losing. I'm not saying Rascoe and Costello are retarted or anything but it's not Lee Atwater and Karl Rove running the Ulster GOP that's for sure. Bottom line though it doesn't matter, as long as Cardinale is Chairman of the Democratic committee, Democrats will continue to lose elections because the only thing worse then a GOP party run by two Fieble minded know it alls is Democratic party run by a curupt aroogant Napolian.
I hate to have to do this but I have to say Ellen DiFalco was 100% correct in the paper a week or so ago regarding the lease of the old King's Inn site to a private group for $1 and here is the kicker and something DiFlaco brought to light, should the city sell this property during the course of this lease, they are intiteled to 3% of the sale. Is that not the most outrageous thing you have ever heard? We're wise guys and think that's a crazy type vig for them to get. They are getting the use of the property for $1. What happens when we give that away is we lose municipal parking spots, UPAC which is an established fixture of Midtown loses parking for its special events and this organization is getting free snow removal, garbage pick up and all other essential services that his neighbors, the tax paying businesses next to him are paying an arm and a leg for struggling to stay in business. How do you think they feel? It's absolute bullshit and kudos to DiFalco for shedding light on it.
Mayor Greenpants hired some new DPW chief and I have to say Boyle or someone from within the department, Bruce Winchell even should have gotten the job not the person he hired. I give Noble some credit because the individual is a resident of the City of Kingston and we do feel that Department Heads should live in Kingston but lets be honest, the guy was only given the job because he has a degree in being a pussy. I mean a degree in environmental education, same difference. Is every hire now going to be someone thats a Vegan, tree hugging environmentalist? There were better qualified candidates from within and Mayor Polacco would have hired from within.
We realize this is three weeks late but we would like to offer our condolences to Joanie Brandt, a long time employee of the City of Kingston that spoke her mind and wasn't afraid to tell it like it was. Joanie just recently retired from the City and was very young and died suddenly, very sad and she will be missed.
