Skelos Concedes
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- November
- 5
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, conceded the majority. Here’s his statement, saying basically that Republicans couldn’t hold back the Barack Obama landslide.
“Tonight, our nation and our state witnessed a presidential landslide of overwhelming proportions. The fact that the Senate Republicans maintained so many seats against such tremendous odds is a testament to the hard work of our incumbents and candidates, and to the importance of the issues they’ve fought for on behalf of the people of this state.
“The challenges we face in this state are enormous and will require that Republicans and Democrats work together to overcome them. In the coming weeks and months, our conference will continue to stand united, and will work with our colleagues from across the aisle to address these problems. As we do so, we will not lose sight of what is important to the people of this state, such as reducing the crushing burden of taxation and maintaining the quality of life that New Yorkers have come to expect.
“While our numbers will be fewer our voice will grow louder, and we will continue our fight to maintain balance and ensure an accountable government that represents all of the people throughout every region of the State.”
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 12:10 am by Joseph Spector.
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No one worked harder to become Minority Leader than Dean and his entire campaign team. Congratulations!
Senator Skelos
Hey, lackluster Leibell just spent $250k on a stupid Assembly campaign, supporting a Democrat…
he could have helped your struggling, slim, Republican majority…
he didn’t…
what a backstabbing, self centered, idiot..
dump leibell
Dump the whole republican party in westchester. 2 outta 17 races? disgraceful. Colty is a fool.
it really is not fair to blame doug coulety when the republicans are down 125,000 in registration to the democrats..,.in a landslide democratic presidential election
In fact Doug did a pretty good job of enlisting candidates
like Liz feld and Rob Biaggi in races where 90% of the time
the incumbant wins…rebuilding the party in westcheseter will take time…part of the problem is the meddling by the
conservative party statewide in the choice of candidates
like faso and spencer which weakened the party tremendously
since new voters were completley turned off…another problem is that new york allows minor parties to cross
endorse making the chairman of the Independence party
the most powerful kingmaker in the county..you will note
that most of the democrats had the Independence line
which made it mathmatically not possible for a republican
to win..that practice needs to be stopped at the state
level..
Come January Dean will still be Majority Leader. The Democrats understand that absolute power is bad and the independent four are making a great deal with the Republicans and they will maintain the Senate.
Part of the irony is that most people who registered “independent” did so because they did not want to be affiliated with any one party, and wanted to independently and individually decide to whom they would give their vote. Seems many of these people have been hoodwinked into turning over inordinate power to another party, the insiders of which can negotiate and advance their own personal power bases by endorsing a major party candidate who may not even be the choice of the majority of registrants.
thats exactly correct…the independence party chaired by
julio cavalo who has now apparently joined forces with
sam zherka specifically to defeat janet difiore, has far
more influence than the numbers of registrants in his
party would indicate…this is a situation that cannot
be tolerated ..one of our legislators has to introduce
a bill to prevent cross endorsements..otherwise it
will be virtually impossible for a republican to win becausse as we saw this election cycle, the indpendence
party will throw its lot in with incumbants…who are
generally re-elected…we need to break that cycle
both locally and statewide
This is sad: mainly because one-party rule leads to discomfort among voters. And statism, of the worst sort.
It is NOT Doug Colety’s fault.
Doug did what he could.
But: fighting the zeitgeist of voter discontent, no political party chairman could be expected to thwart a “rebellion” which costs that chairman seats in his home county.
It’s simply that our GOP needs better, more informed—and intelligent—candidates, to run for local office. That’s how you capture the hearts and minds of voters, and win elections.
Our state Republican Party is in shambles. It needs a Bill Powers to turn it around.
There are only a few Westchester Republicans I have seen over the past eight years who might inspire voters. Young Rob Astorino comes to mind. George Oros—a splendid statesman, a real intellect, and a man of good moral character. Mayor Phil Zegerelli of Sleepy Hollow. Legislator Jim Maisano. (A former Marine, and lawyer.)
This is how Bill Powers resuscitated the New York State Republican Party—by getting young GOP officials to get elected.