Conservatives want state chair involved
Members of the Westchester County Conservative Party, who have accused leaders of forging signatures to get Democrats including County Executive Andrew Spano on that ballot line, want the state’s chief Conservative to get involved. They’re asking New York State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long to call for a criminal investigation into the matter.
“The integrity of the New York State Conservative Party, indeed, of the entire democratic electoral process in the state, is being jeopardized through what appears to be outright fraud in Westchester,” said Hugh Fox, Westchester Conservative Party corresponding secretary. “Forgery is a crime, and there is very good reason to believe that forgery is involved here. The rank and file Westchester County Conservatives are asking Chairman Long to request a formal criminal inquiry into this process.”
Westchester Conservatives have filed several lawsuits against party leaders alleging fraud and misusing proxy or weighted votes during two conventions.
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Something tells me Spano is going to rue the day he tried to steal this line.
spano is not going to be affected one way or the other
either he will end up with the line or the line will
be vacant..in order for astorino to win he has to have
the line himself..vacant doesn’t help..its the number
of votes that the line delivers that any republican
needs to beat a democrat…so depriving spano from
having the line is a pyrric victory
If the line is vacant, virtually every Conservative who votes will vote for the Republican. Take it to the teller, cash the check, and start shopping.
that me be true ed..but its those that are not registered
conservative that really count…there are far more people
voting on the consv and IND lines than are registered in
the party..so no one knows where those votes come from
Is it democrats who can’t stand to pull the republican
lever and so they have an alternative ..or is it non
party registered voters who want to not vote on a major
line..the problem with not having the line ..is that you
do not get the votes that the line brings….simply
being conservative is really not enough with the registration edge going to the democrats by 124,000
The problem is Wilson Pakula. If the candidates could just go out, get signatures, and have a primary, this would be moot, and there’d be no need for forgeries or patronage-endorsemetn reciprocity agreements.
I understand the spirit of the idea. Perhaps if the threshold for candidates who did not get the WP was set higher (rather than lower for an Opportunity Ballot), Astorino could go out, get the signatures, and have an old-fashioned primary.
Hijacking a party is reprehensible, but they did it by the rules. Now, if forgery was involved, that’s no longer playing by the rules, but Andy Spano has zero connection to that, like him, or not. Other, unrelated, Yonkers-based Spanos, however, may be culpable, and as someone who plans to vote for Rob Astorino and Dan Schorr, and it’s good to see they’re finally being excised like the cancer they are..
whats a bad thing is the ability of these minor parties
to cross endorse in the first place…it causes candidates
like astorino and schorr to have to wonder if they will
get not only support from their own party but two others
as well..and what is the price for that support….the
problem is that with cross endorsements there is no control
over the price..it can be set be either of the minor parties
and then what?
Agreed. Parties should be limited to one candidate like they are in other states. If they can’t get to 50,000 in a gubernatorial year, sionara.
and I thank you for that..
You may be 100% correct, but you must understand that, since things are presently and perhaps unfortunately, the way they are, the very cynical theft of endorsement by the Conservative Party insiders and handing it to a liberal Democrat is the type of thing that ultimately drives confused and disgusted voters to the likes of Mr. Zherka and his posse. I am certainly not one of those, but reality is reality.
Zherka and Cavallo are the real reason the Conservative leadership refused to endorse Astorino, no good Conservative wants to be tied into the trio of Lovett, Cavallo and Zherka. This is the dirty dozen minus nine.
pj makes a great point…because it is not that people
are driven to zherka because of the process ..it is because
of the process that someone like zherka and cavalo can
control a minor party with very little broad support that
makes the current way ny does things so very anti democratic
its the reason ny is only one of 6 states to allow minor
parties to cross endorse…it compromises the viability of
a legitimate two party system…
Yea and what about Ms. Burns in past years being tied to the Dr. She was so tight she did what he said and took his word in the Judaical convention two years ago against Judge Nicoli. What that was then this is now. Just an excuse to go the way Nickie wants. She has never had her own mind. Never had a real job and relies on the political tit.
Again Andy Spano doesn’t have a Conservative Bone in his body.
this is not about who is conservative ideologically
anymore..its about power..and once you allow minor
parties to accumulate it you cannot complain if they
excercise it….thats why cross endorsements should
be abolished…surely there must be a democratic
state senator in westchester who will introduce the bill
PJ
Why do you believe the Zherka, Cavallo and Lovett are all criminals. Let’s see now, we had Jeanne Pirro a Republican who husband evaded taxes and she was hooked with Bernard Kerik for wrongdoing. We have Joe Bruno who is under investigation and this is to name just a few. You don’t like these three gentlemen because they are trying to do the right thing. Everytime the liberal newspaper, The Journal News or News 12 mentions Sam Zherka they only mention he is a strip club owner. They never mention that he is a businessman involved in real estate. I would state that the newspapers and News12 are both very biased. We need a change in Westchester county because homeowners are being kicked out of their homes due to higher taxes. We should not be proud of being the HIGHEST TAXED COUNTY IN THE NATION. I’m voting for Astorino and Shorr. Hopefully, the rest of Westchester will do the same.
sam zherka may indeed be a businessman…why however
are you overlooking the admitted fact that he is under
criminal investigation in manhattan for drug dealing
prostitution and money laundering..those are facts he
put in his legal papers and representations he made to
a federal judge…zherka has injected himself into westchester politics..he has used his newspaper week
after week to villify the district attorney…while his
own editor richard blassberg acted as the campaign consultant and presumably still does for tony castro
that is indeed a bias..simply referring to him as the
owner of a gentlemans club ..is not a big deal…the
rest of his backround however totally eliminates him
and the candidates he supports from holding office..
and the taxes you are complaining about are being foisted
on you primarily by your schools and your villages..the
county only accounts for 18% of them…that leaves
82% for the rest..maybe if you understood how taxes are
imposed and that most of them are not imposed by the county
you wouldn;t be so fast to defend zherka who wants to
abolish county government when in fact that would require
a state constitutional amendment which would have to
abolish all counties..and most of them like their county
government just fine
These small parties are not to blame, the ignorant mass of rubes who populate the state and continue re-electing thugs, two-bit criminals, and careerist scumbags election after election are to blame. In other words, the people of NY have no one but themselves to blame and nothing will change until they take some responsibility for their voting behavior.
NY State Conservative Chairman will not touch this, he plays politics to. Chairman Long understands that in the bigger scheme of things this race is Westchester County is peanuts to him. Chairman Long wants to a have working relationship with the Democratic lead state leaders; Chairman Long like everyone else has an interest in having a relationship with those in power. Those calling on Chairman Long to get involved with a race with the likes of Zherka and Castro lingering in the background are slim. Chairman Long is smarter then that and will sit this one out.
I may disagree with mike long and I may not agree that minor parties should cross endorse but mike long has
never been anything but upfront about what he believes
in…take the pirro race for US senate for example…
he said at the beginning that pirro could not get
conservative support because it was a national race
and she was pro choice…her handlers let her announce
anyway…thinking that he could be dealt with at a later
date..they were dead wrong…but long has been consistant
and for him to involve himself in the middle of an internecine fight in westchester would set a bad precedent
for other fights in other counties….smart leaders know
when to hold and know when to fold
Zheraka dines with Espada-
Jereis back in the YOnkers GOPand Castro-Blanco sue Lesnick over Independence petitions-all at YonkersRising.com the rising times blogZheraka dines with Espada-Jereis back in the YOnkers GOPand Castro-Blanco sue Lesnick over Independence petitions-all at YonkersRising.com the rising times blog
This is not Long’s fight, Long will support the Chairperson of the party.
If he overtly supports her, he will be jumping into the other orifice of the toaster, will soon be charred and burned and will end up in the kitchen trash bin he has long belonged in.
Well, wattayaknow. Long just weighed in on the side of the challengers. He’s more astute than I gave him credit for. Let’s see if he follows through.
Sounds good publicly, Long will quietly do nothing as he should. This is a local issue.
Baloney. There is no ‘quietly.’ The man has spoken. Where’s the quiet? If he wanted to cede Westchester as a sphere of influence and dollars, he would do so at his own peril, and he knows it. Additionally, if he had any interest in the Party doing Andy Spano any favors, he would expect personal political recompense, not insider deals to a couple few renegades.