Republicans under siege
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- November
- 30
Putnam County Republican Chairman Anthony Scannapieco, Jr. has called a secret meeting for Dec. 3 of all elected Republican officials and members of the county and town executive committees.
The strategy session at the Italian American Club in Mahopac is “long overdue” if Republicans are going to successfully meet the electoral challenges of the 2008 elections, Scannapieco wrote.
“We as a party must unite and speak with one voice as we are the only county in Southern New York controlled by Repulicans,” he wrote. “This fact is totally neglected by the anti-Republican Journal News. I ask everyone to make every effort to attend this meeting and also not to discuss the meeting with our friends at the Journal News.”
This entry was posted
on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 3:35 pm by Susan Elan.
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Looks like the leader is a little too defensive..and
considering the size of putnam county, they hardly
speak for a majority of republicans in other counties
maybe if the party regulars would stop viewing the
media as protagonists and start understanding the
job that the news media serves..they would be in a better
position to get their message out..
The consultant is correct, I worked in Yonkers as a fire fighter many years ago with Tony Scannapieco and he has not changed much. Tony Scannapieco is causing this problem for himself and the Republican Party. Asking elected officials not to speak with the Gannett News is irresponsible and will only hurt his efforts and the efforts of the republicans in Putnam County. Expecting to have a secret meeting with elected officials and keeping such a meeting a secret is a joke. The republicans in Putnam are fighting with each other mostly because the Chairman (Tony Scannapieco) refuses to support republican incumbents for office, The Chairman continues to go against the incumbents if they do not heed his wishes when they get elected to office. The Chairman believes that elected republicans should vote the way he wants and not the people they represent. A look at the most recent election will show that the Chairman defeated one of his own elected officials, the Chairman wanted Fusco to get the nod for the legislative seat in his district against Morini a long time republican incumbent and Fusco got the nod. Make no mistake here, The Chairman defeated Morini, not Fusco. The Chairman was luke warm with his support for Highway Superintendent Mike Simone leading to a very close race. The Chairman allowed his handpicked candidate Fusco to work against Mike Simone and support Mike Simone’s opponent. One must wonder about the people the Chairman is selecting to run for office. The Chairman should start the secret meeting by indicating that he plans on resigning or making major changes to the way he conducts business. The Chairman is the one who should take the blame for the party slowly falling apart. The Chairman gets the credit when all is going well and when things start to fall apart, the Chairman should stand up and take the heat for creating and allowing the political environment of discontent to feaster in his party. If I were attending the meeting I would ask the Chairman if he has any plans on stepping aside and allowing someone else to take over as Chairman. The Chairman continues to chastise the Gannett newspaper and then expects his candidates to get good articles written about them. Some of the disdain and dislike is self inflicted wounds or injury by friendly fire. Fortunately for The Chairman the democrats are in a worst situation then the republicans, they have their Chairwomen who just can not get the job done, she is unorganized and makes her candidates easy to defeat by her lack of experience and leadership. The Chairman has made many bad decisions over the last ten years, he picks more loses in primaries then winners. The Chairman does not listen to the people on the republican committee, he dictates to them and then squeezes them to vote a certain way and then he guarantees his win by introducing his proxies.
Mr. Chairman, please stop blaming the press for your problems, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are serving as a good leader for the party? Or are you serving as a leader for Tony Scannipieco who is trying to maintain power and your job as elections commissioner? Maybe Mr. Chairman it is time to move on.
The “secret meeting” is announced in the Journal News four days before the “secret meeting.” The blind leading the blind.
I think you mean “antagonists,” Con.
The news media is NOT an enemy of our Republican Party. It is our own GOP that is too often an enemy of both the news media—and itself.
We need to get over this unnecessary hostility.
In the news business, generally, the younger reporters are assigned to bureaus away from the home office. Because these reporters are young, they are deemed to be “liberal” by the landed establishment.
I consider the coverage here in Westchester to be very fair, on most counts, by the local news media—Journal News and News 12.
Let’s not go Nixonian on the news media. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy to alienate working news media professionals, then question their virtue in reporting.
What, the editorial page is any different than the opining of the “young, liberal” reporters? Your point about tactics is well-taken, but the reality is that the politics of the JN colors their reporting and editorializing.
SCANNAPIECO HAS BEEN AROUND A LITTLE TOO LONG – HE SHOULD STEP DOWN AND LET SOMEBODY ELSE HAVE A TURN.
ALSO, HIS BEING THE BOE COMMISH AND COUNTY CHAIRMAN REEKS. HE SHOULD BE ONE OR THE OTHER, NOT BOTH. SAME GOES FOR THE WESTCHESTER DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN.
SCANNAPIECO CANNOT UNITE THE PARTY, AND THE DIVISION THAT HE AND OTHERS HAVE CREATED WILL ULTIMATELY LEAD TO LOST SEATS, AND ENROLLMENT WILL FOLLOW.
THE PUTNAM GOP NEEDS A UNITER AND A FRESH FACE.
I cannot imagine that the Putnam County Republican Party are any worse than the Westchester County Republican Party, which is full of inept politicians. Anthony Scannapieco, Jr.’s call for a “secret” meeting may be a little silly, but at least he has had results. Putnam is considerably better run than Westchester. Moreover, the Consultant and others have been complaining for years about the Journal News’ obvious liberal bias, why get mad at Mr. Scannapieco for doing likewise.
“Keep it happy. keep it snappy, keep it gay!”
There is not as much liberal sanctimony in modern day news media (at least the print side) as my Republican friends would have us think. It is simply, as Richard Nixon told Bill Safire, “If a smart young man is a Republican, he goes into business; if a smart young man is a Democrat, he goes into journalism.” This aphorism is not always true today—there are more smart young (Republican) men and women who go into journalism since that comment by our 36th President, some 25 years ago. But Nixon’s verdict is still salient.
I recall January 20, 1993, when Bill Clinton was sworn into office as president. Fifteen minutes later, his so-called friends in the press turned on him. Time Magazine, Newsweek, even the wags at the self-righteous New York Times, each had articles critical of Sweet Old Bill while his right hand was still on the bible—this after tacitly supporting him the previous eight months in his quest for the presidency.
Good reporters go after who ever is in office. It’s their nature. Democrats, Republicans, you name it. I have in my office critical reporting of Harry S Truman, Lyndon Johnson—and our Richard Nixon. Even Ronald Reagan, who arguably had the best press office in recent times, had his fair share of critical reporting, even by friends such as George Will, believe it or not. Forget Jimmy Carter—there are reams of articles unfavorable to him in his four short years.
Mr. Scannapieco will recover from this. He’s a decent guy.
But don’t argue with working news media folks; they are doing their job. They respect honesty, and openness, and expect it. And, if you alienate them, you will be hoist by your own petard.
Apology: Nixon was the 37th President. Otherwise, everything I said was right. ;>
Every dog has its day. Anthony has had his day and now he should step down. The problem is who should replace him? Are there any strong potential leaders who would be willing to step up? I do not think his Vice Chair would be a good choice. The problem is Anthony has not groomed anyone to follow behind him. Could the next Chairman be an elected official? Does the next Chairman have to be a committee member? The democrats are moving into Putnam County quickly, if the republican leadership continues to take republican voters for granted they may be surprised one day. Look at what Santos almost did to Bondi, Santos defeated Bondi when you look at the democratic line versus the republican line Santos, Santos got more votes on the democratic line then Bondi got on the republican line. Bondi was reelected because of the other party lines. Anthony did nothing in that race to help Bondi and almost allowed the democrats to take over the County Executive Office. I would suggest throwing some names out there as potential Republican Party Chairman candidates. . Anyone else have comments or suggestions for the next Chairman, if you do you should post them here so republican committee members can see your thoughts and maybe they can discuss them amongst themselves and come up with a new Chairman. I will throw a few names on the table as potential candidates
Kevin Dywer
Charlie Melchene
Mike Griffin
Mike Simone
Dave Farfaro
Regina Morini
Dan Birmingham
Maryellen O’Dell
Tony Hay
I go with Tony Hay, he plays hard but he plays fair.
the consultant has never complained about the jn as
being a liberal newspaper…they endorsed the consultant
when he ran for congress against one of the most
liberal incumbants ever to occupy a seat ..Richard
Ottinger…In addition over the years the jn has
endorsed CARL VERGARI, ANGELO MARTINELLI, JEANINE
PIRRO..TWICE, JANET DI FIORE, NICK SPANO..ALL
REPUBLICANS..AND NONE TOO LIBERAL…
tony and cavalow those two have to go…......
The Consultant seems to have a grasp on things with the JN. It appears the issue with Anthony is that he wants to act like Boss Hog and dismiss people when they go against him. When you continue to refuse to talk with the JN and you attempt to order your elected officials not to talk with the JN and you go around and call them the urinal news, how do you think they are going to treat you?
I suggest looking at thyself and maybe changing who you are Anthony, you and you alone are slowly taking the Republican Party down in Putnam.
and that is exactly what Anthony is in the process
of doing..He is isolating Republicans…He is giving
the JN foder for its blog site and its front page
and he is forgetting about all those non party
registered voters who look at what he is doing
and think to themselves…why on earth should
we support republicans whose leader is acting
so antagonistically toward the press..and is
holding secret meetings…it doesn’t do the
putnam county republicans one bit of good and
in fact creates the appearance that they have
something to hide
I whole heartedly disagree with Peter C. –
1. Tony should not step down anytime in the near future. He is doing a fine job and is clearly being proactive about maintaining GOP control. That’s something the knuckleheads in Westchester never did.
2. When Tony does decide to step aside, he will have a very capable successor in his Vice Chair Henry Lopez. Just look to this year’s election in Putnam Valley. Lopez was the architect of one of the best campaigns Putnam County has seen in a long, long time. And while Republican candidates either lost or were busy fighting with each other in Phillipstown, Kent, Patterson, Carmel and Southeast, Henry maintained a united and strong Party in Putnam Valley and led the GOP to a clean sweep on Election Day.
Those are results that cannot be ignored.
I don’t know Henry Lopez that well, but I can assure you that the eastern part of Putnam would never allow a Putnam Valley guy who has limited political experience to run the party. Your next leader of the Republican party will most likely come from east of the Taconic, just the facts.
If the Republican Party is to succeed in Putnam, Tony should step down. I don’t think the Lopez is the answer, but there are many qualified Republicans out there. Boss Tony has modeled his stewardship after the failed regimes in Westchester. The Republican party is a shambles in that county and it is just a matter of time before the internal devisiveness and back biting created by Boss Tony, Greg Ball and his “brown shirts” destroy the GOP. The only thing the Dems DON’T have to take control is leadership and attractive candidates. My guess is that you will soon see the Democratic party seeking out moderate Republicans to carry their standard, a la John Degnan in the Town of Southeast. But for a very competent third party “also ran” in Lorraine Mitts, Degnan would be Southeast Supervisor come January 1st. Having a person like Rights leading the Town as a “Republican” will result in the further degradation of the party in that Town.
I have information that will damage the campaign of republican candidate William Gouldman who will be running against Assemblywoman Sandy Galef. Whatever Journal news reporter is interested please leave your email address.
you’ve gotta love people like “advocate” – lol!
boy, you must really have some hot stuff on your hands…
loser.
The republicans are so desparate for candidates that they will run anybody, what I have on William Gouldman is bad news for his candidacy, after this news is out about him he will not even get his name on the ballot, and you know exactly what I am talking about Mr. Gouldman, you desevre no place in running for an elected office.
It does not matter who the republicans run, Assemblywoman Sandy Galef can not be beaten, she does a good job representing her district. This thread is about Anthony and his lack of leadership in the Republican Party. I hear that there may be a potenial strong candidate for the job surfacing his/her(?)name shortly. And no the person is not Henry Lopez.
The funny thing about these sites is you can be anyone you want to be or you can be someone else. These sites sometimes are a little misleading. I am not the consultant.
cute..very cute..I am!
Say what you want about Sandy Galef, she shows up and talks to people. I can’t say that about Tamagna nor Leibell.
So Sandy Galef shows up. So that is what you think a good Assemblywoman should do to represent her District. There is more to the job of an Assemblyperson then showing up. You actually have to do things for your district.