Greenawalt fights back
Even though he didn’t get the support of the Greenburgh Democratic Party’s executive committee, Bill Greenwalt said he believes that the full Democratic Town Committee will support him in his bid for Town Supervisor.
“It’s a going to be a fight, but I think I will prevail,” he said this afternoon.
Greenawalt, who came within 200 votes of beating Supervisor Paul Feiner in the 2005 Democratic Primary, said the executive committee’s endorsement of Suzanne Berger  the party’s chairwoman â€â€Ã‚ doesn’t mean she will win the majority of votes at the party May 24 convention.
“They’re independent people,” he said, referring to other party members.
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anyone but feiner
Why doesn’t the consultant run for supervisor on the GOP ticket? Put your money where your mouth is.
Consultant may be a Republican, but he’s right on the money when it comes to understanding Greenburgh.
Feiner is so desperate, cynical and venal that he’d actually use the tens of thousands of dollars that developers have paid him to pay college volunteers to get signatures to put Greenawalt on the ballot—Feiner figuring he stands a better chance of winning in G’burgh if there’s a three-way Democratic primary.
However, in any three-way race in Democratic Greenburgh among two men and a woman, the odds on favorite would be the woman in any event.
Here, however, where the woman is as talented, accomplished and well-regarded as Suzanne Berger is, Feiner would be better off saving his money until he can land another job.
Come now, Bill can get on the ballot. There’s no need to drum up hypotheticals of people paying “college kids” now. He’s got six votes from the executive committee did he not? Correct me if I’m wrong.
You’re forgetting incumbency which still plays a factor in a three way race, by the way.
I have no disrespect for Suzanne Berger mind you. She may yet be a formidable opponent. And I won’t count out Greenawalt either. You can’t take anything for granted and you have to put the work in.
Oh and so the “consultant� has observed a politician for thirty years and is unimpressed? So then I ask who does impress you?
Does Nick Spano, Phil Amicone, and the Yonkers GOP impress you? Did Sue Kelly impress you? What about Dick Ottinger? Does he still haunt you?
Aren’t you out of your league since judicial races is where you make your cash?
Feiner might not need to spend money on college kids to round up the necessary signatures that Greenawalt will need to get on the ballot—but that would only be the case if he could use his own volunteers to gather the signatures for him.
However, one can only gather signatures legally for one candidate running for that office—not two. So, if Feiner’s operatives are thinking about carrying petitions for both Feiner and Greenawalt, hoping to get both on the ballot and force a three-way race, they’d better think twice.
Sir, thank you for the lesson in election law. I’m quite sure you know that the Feiner side has access to the same information as you do concerning the Board of Elections.
I think they’ll have their hands full doing their job as it were to even think about helping Mr. Greenawalt. I just feel that he knows he needs to get on the ballot and he’ll find a way.
The question I now pose is. Will “the party” file objections to his signatures once they come in like they did to Timmy Weinberg? Two years ago the Feiner side did no such thing even though they had four thousand signatures as opposed to the 2, 500 + of “the party”.
Maybe your ties to the fine institution of Harvard will help Mr. Greenawalt out?
Peace
This business about challenging Greenawalt’s signatures is a red herring. Right now, assuming he doesn’t get the Democratic Party’s endorsement, he won’t have the volunteers to get them.
Consequently, the Feiner camp is now so desperate to get Bill Greenawalt on the ballot that they’re considering throwing all their votes in Greenawalt’s direction at the town’s Democratic Convention on May 24.
They know that there’s no way that Feiner will ever get the party’s endorsement, so they think the next best thing they can do is to support Greenawalt at the convention and hope that with Feiner’s vote and Greenawalt’s combined, they’ll have enough votes to deny Suzanne Berger the endorsement.
Some even think that Feiner getting zero votes at the convention—as opposed to the 15% he got two years ago—will enable him to get even more publicity for his run in the primary “against the party.”
Because Greenawalt is recognized as the weaker of the two challengers, Feiner’s crowd is hoping that they can throw the party’s endorsement to Greenawalt and force Berger out of the race.
Some Feiner supporters have said they’d stay home from the convention before they’d cast a vote to support Greenawalt, but others, recognizing what Feiner may be trying to do, are not so sure.
Greenawalt’s supporters will have to decide whether they like being manipulated in this fashion.
Interesting, you pose so many questions. Somehow even if the Feiner supporters on “the party” committee did vote for Greenawalt. I doubt that would deny Suzanne Berger the nomination. She is going to get it. I have no doubt in my mind that she will be the designee of “the party”. She has it sewn up lock, stock, and barrel. Why, she even has GOP consultants thinking of helping pro bono if I’ve read comments on past blog entries correctly.
She is the candidate “the party” has been waiting for it seems.
Even if Greenawalt were to get the nomination its still a repeat of two years ago. Which means there is still much work by the Feiner camp that needs to be done. Either way there will be a challenge. Greenawalt caught many off guard two years ago and no ones not going to take him seriously this time.
You do however raise an interesting question when it comes to volunteers however. Will Greenawalt have the volunteers? I suspect he needs about four gung-ho Democrats that will go out there and get him 2,000 signatures to stave off challenges. If he includes himself in the equation it is possible.
How many Feiner supporters are there within “the party” anyway? I doubt there are that many since they’ve held their disdain for the supervisor for many years now.
The May 24th convention is meaningful only to “the party” candidate and that’s it.
The Feiner camp—already hard at work on spin—is trying to portray the Greenburgh Democratic Party as some kind of “monolith.” However, it’s anything but.
The “party” consists of more than 150 duly-elected district leaders from throughout the villages and the town’s unincorporated areas. This is grassroots politics at its most basic. Every two years every district leader has to gather signatures and file a petition to get on the ballot, and in a few cases, some of these elections are contested.
These individuals are not political hacks, as Feiner’s supporters would have it. To the contrary, they are independent-minded lawyers, bankers, educators, union workers, retirees, and housewives, who truly represent the racial and socio-economic diversity that is Greenburgh.
How they will vote at the party’s convention is anybody’s guess, which is why candidates must canvass the district leaders again and again to shore up their support.
Feiner has never bothered to do that, preferring to speak only to district leaders who he knows are supporters of his, thumbing his nose at everyone else, and vowing to run in a primary no matter what the Democratic Party district leaders decide to do.
It’s no surprise therefore that four years ago Feiner barely got the party’s endorsement even when running unopposed, and that two years ago, when Greenawalt challenged him, he got no more than 15% of the vote.
Suzanne Berger has a decided advantage because she’s a popular party chair. In fact, she’s been elected by acclamation over the past four years, which is no mean feat considering all the divisions in Greenburgh. Even Feiner’s camp has supported her.
Truthteller,
There is no question that Suzanne Berger is popular on the committee. Actually I don’t have anything against her as a person or as a chairperson. I only wish things were different and there was no division in the town because I’d had loved to be working with her than against.
Her job running that committee is like herding cats. She inherited a party that is far from what is is now and kudos to her for that.
You said:
“The “partyâ€? consists of more than 150 duly-elected district leaders from throughout the villages and the town’s unincorporated areas. This is grassroots politics at its most basic. Every two years every district leader has to gather signatures and file a petition to get on the ballot, and in a few cases, some of these elections are contested.”
But how many of them actually carry? C’‘mon there are many who are appointed and can’t even fill a single petition page and you know it. Furthermore, the last time I actually saw some contention was in 2006 involving three election districts in Edgemont (there may have been more or less). Face it, the party is not as grassroots as you think it is.
You also mentioned:
“How they will vote at the party’s convention is anybody’s guess, which is why candidates must canvass the district leaders again and again to shore up their support.”
“Feiner has never bothered to do that, preferring to speak only to district leaders who he knows are supporters of his, thumbing his nose at everyone else, and vowing to run in a primary no matter what the Democratic Party district leaders decide to do. ”
Greenawalt is also going to run no matter what the district leaders do as well I hear. But besides that, why does Paul Feiner have to lobby district leaders in which he determines is against him? He can gauge support can he not? There aren’t that many fluctuations on the committee where there are new faces all the time. He’ll work with the few who do support him that’s all he can do.
Finally:
“It’s no surprise therefore that four years ago Feiner barely got the party’s endorsement even when running unopposed, and that two years ago, when Greenawalt challenged him, he got no more than 15% of the vote.”
You are correct and no, its no surprise that Feiner has not gotten support from the party for all these years. But he has won some elections and he does have some support from Democratic (some of them prime) and Republican voters in the town.
So “the party” does not like him. Yet he does get support from (I won’t say enormous support from the prime voters considering 2005, we have to work on that) the prime and non-prime Democratic voters.
Basically its what it has always come down to “the party” versus Feiner. After all, you have to know where your support is and where it is not.
Bill Greenawalt said that if he didn’t get the endorsement at the convention, his running in a three-way primary was “highly unlikely.” Loyal Dems will take Bill at his word. If it’s not in the cards for him this year, and it doesn’t look like it is, he’ll do the right thing. Bill is a loyal Dem and he’s absolutely determined not to see Feiner get re-elected.
As for the district leaders, the number who actually carried petitions is a matter of public record. In fact, only a few were appointed. Indeed, there were virtually no vacancies from the last election where appointments could even have been made.
If Feiner intends to smear this dedicated group of activist Democrats by calling them a bunch of appointees, as you have just done, you and he will have to come up with more than innuendo to prove it.
Loyal Dem,
I stand corrected then. Greenawalt will not run, very well.
You know what? I’m not really trying to smear you all. I’m criticizing you all. You also give Feiner way too much credit. You almost make him sound like he’s an evil Machiavellian genius ala Karl Rove where he works through his supporters or something. He’s not the boogeyman.
I will correct my error in believing that many of the district leaders did not carry. It appears you have gotten the facts and that is what I will go by. They carried and few were appointed so there.
I do not believe that the majority of the committee is “activist” however. I personally believe that the committee is stuck in some of its ways because of the history many of its members have being a part of it. For decades and for better or worse many have harbored the same beliefs, feelings, and prejudices concerning Feiner and other town issues and have not changed them. These people also make up most of the power structure and the majority within the committee.
There you have it. Many of you are not “activist” and are not even “progressive”. Many of you are what I’d call establishment. Many of you are stuck in a monotonous routine of the spoils system.
I say all that not smearing you. I know there are district leaders (Feiner or non-Feiner supporters) who I would consider “my kind of Democrat”. But the controlling element is what I disagree with. And that is what I will continue to make known until the old is gone and new blood is there.
Feiner’s handler “Civilis” doesn’t think that the majority of the Democratic Party’s district leaders in Greenburgh are “activist” or “progressive” enough for him. And he also thinks there’s some “power structure,” a “controlling element” and a “spoils system” here.
This is pure malarkey—those things may exist in Queens, where it sounds like Civilis may have grown up, but this is Greenburgh. There is no “power structure” here, no patronage system, no “controlling element” and certainly no “spoils system.” And if that’s the propaganda that Feiner’s planning to spew to Journal News readers for the primary, he must really think Greenburgh Democrats are naive and stupid—and that they are not.
For one thing, most of the 150 or so Democrats who are district leaders are indeed “activists.” Anyone who would take the time they took last summer to walk through their neighborhoods gathering signatures on a petition, in order to qualify to get on the ballot, to serve, without pay, as a district leader, are self-selected community “activists” in every sense of the word.
Furthermore, most of these activists are involved in a variety of progressive causes, including opposition to the war, cleaning up the environment, closing down Indian Point, ethics reform (including getting Feiner to stop taking money from developers with applications pending before the town), improving our schools, and the list goes on and on.
And what is this nonsense about district leaders being “stuck” in some of their ways because of some history here? If that’s not baseless innuendo and smear, I don’t know what is. Ask 100 district leaders why they don’t like Feiner, and you’ll probably get 100 different answers.
And on what basis, other than Feiner’s having said so, does Feiner’s handler assume that “many have harbored the same beliefs, feelings, and prejudices concerning Feiner and other town issues and have not changed them?” Many old-timers will tell you they used to like Feiner very much—that is, until they got to know him.
And other than paranoia and Feiner’s say so, on what basis does Feiner’s handler conclude that those district leaders who don’t like Feiner “also make up the power structure and the majority within the committee”?
The fact is that there has been quite a bit of turnover over the years among the district leaders, with a record number of new districts leaders being elected last year alone. A few of those new district leaders—with no prior political experience at all in the town—were actually voted on to the party’s executive committee—and some long-time members of that committee, who weren’t Feiner supporters, were voted off.
So these hackneyed characterizations of yours sound like the musings of a frustrated political hack. You demean yourself, you demean Feiner, you demean the 150 or so “activists” who make up the district leaders of Greenburgh’s Democratic Party, and you demean those “prime” and not so prime voters who vote in the town’s Democratic Primary. Do you really think this strategy is going to work?
A town with one party that rules all is bad for democracy. Whether it be Democrat or Republican. One of the problems with the Democratic Party in Greenburgh is the fact that they don’t have a strong GOP to compete with for votes.
Therefore, they fight amongst themselves as it were…..
Oh, did you know that Greenawalt is running ads in the County Press. Does that sound like someone who is going to stop if they don’t get the designation on May 24th? Does he just have money lying around to spend on ads for no reason? Is he doing that to influence the district leaders?
If he’s doing any of the latter two I must say its a bold strategy to go into a newspaper just to get votes at the convention. Therefore, I’m guessing he’s staying in until the primary in September.
I’m sure Bill Greenawalt’s doing everything he can to get the town’s Democratic Committee endorsement. He’s an announced candidate for public office—why shouldn’t he?
But Bill’s always been a loyal Democrat, and if he says he’ll stand down if he doesn’t get the endorsement, we should all take him at his word. Feiner, by contrast, has said he could care less if he doesn’t get the endorsement, which shows he doesn’t care what any of the district leaders think.
But in reading these posts, the one thing that really struck me was the comment from Feiner’s “Civitas” supporter who said some of the district leaders opposed to Feiner have been in the party for “decades.”
“Civitas” mentioned that he had some familiarity with Edgemont. Edgemont has 12 district leaders—eight of whom were elected for the first time within the past three years. And of the four who have been around the longest—they consist of a former town Democratic chair, her husband, their son, and a family friend. This is cronyism at its worst. The son and the family friend have no interest at all in local politics—they just do what the son’s mother tells them to do—and, ironically enough, because of some feud the mother had years ago with Greenawalt, all four of whom are considered Feiner supporters these days.
So at least in Edgemont, where “Civitas” claims to have some familiarity, the opposite of what he says is true. The four district leaders who’ve been in office there the longest happen to be the Feiner supporters—while most of the ones who’ve just gotten elected in Edgemont are reform-minded independents who believe core Democratic values will finally be restored to the town once Feiner is retired from office.
Go figure.
All I’m saying is its rather odd that he would advertise in the newspaper to get the designation. It’s an interesting strategy, but is it spending money in the wrong place? After all, how many district leaders does he expect to reach with the ad?
I humbly establish Paul as a 7:5 favorite to win re-election as Supervisor.
I hear good things said about Suzanne Berger, and Bill Greenawalt and I share a veteranarian (he is a cat-lover, like me), but you should never doubt the veracity of Paul Feiner, no matter what you think of him.
Republicans are outnumbered by greater than 2-1 in Greenburgh. When I was GOP Chairman (2001-2005) we could have run Reagan or Rudy at their prime and still lost. “Pattern” and “Commuter” voting make the Democrat nominee a virtual “lock” to win in November in the Town.
Paul Feiner is one of the best constituent politician/elected officials I have ever seen in action, in a life that spans from Congressman Tom Rees in Los Angeles, in my boyhood, through Senator Al D’Amato here in New York. You may not always like Paul, you may deprecate him, or criticize him, but Paul works harder than almost anybody in politics. He’s not malfeasant, unfortunately for those of us Republicans who would like to elect one of our own with some “issue” to depose Paul.
This is going to be a fun race to watch.