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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Party Loyalty


Once again Democrats are being treated to a so called Democrat working with and endorsing a Republican instead of a highly qualified member of his own party. This Roy McDonald lawn sign is on the lawn of Democratic Councilman Al Spain. It continues the tradition of family endorsements of Republicans which began when Jeff Spain endorsed the GOP slate for town positions during his brief stint as a Democratic Chairman and continued with a letter sent as a former Democratic Chair to voters endorsing the entire Republican slate for the Rensselaer County Legislature in 2009.

When Republican Roy McDonald first ran for the State Senate, Al Spain publicly endorsed him as you can see here.Seeing this year's lawn sign endorsement is therefore no surprise to those who have followed the spectacle.When people ask why there is a split in the town Democratic Party, this sign tells part of the story. Democrats have a choice of joining those registered in the party who work for and endorse Republicans or they can choose to work for and endorse Democratic candidates and causes. Those in party leadership positions will always have to make that choice of turning the party over to a group of registered Democrats who are fed by the Republicans with jobs and who are loyal to them or choosing not to place Republican lawn signs on their property and around town in favor of Democratic candidates.

It's easy to understand why these "Democrats" are working for the Republicans who are clearly using their Democratic enrollment to attack Democrats and their credibility. Al Spain depends on the Republican administration in Troy for his City job and his brother is the recipient of two GOP appointed jobs, one from the county legislature on a Sewer Board and the other here in town on the Planning Board.

What the Republicans get out it is also clear. The ability of the GOP to use these folks for political endorsements has a certain political value which may explain why they are willing to pay for all this legal work created when Jeff Spain donated the party committee's money in a effort to cripple the Democrats in the town elections. He left the committee with just .45 cents and as the Times Union reports, he donated odd amounts to get the account under a buck. Using party lawyers and resources to defend actions done to benefit the Republicans further ingratiates the clan to the GOP, political IOU's are created and are collected in many forms, including apparently,lawn sign endorsements.

This paradox will not end any time soon but at least the ability of the Republican side to take charge of a Democratic ballot line will end as the Town Democratic Committee has voted unanimously to use the Primary method of candidate selection over the Caucus method. Republicans cannot get on the Democratic ballot without a waiver from the party chairman and that is an unlikely scenario given Party Chairman Tom Wade's well known feelings on such cross endorsements which were clearly pronounced when he pushed the nomination of Judge Patrick McGrath over an effort to cross endorse Republican Anthony Carpinello. Judge McGrath won his party nomination and won the election over his GOP opponent rather convincingly.

Another story making the news today comes from the Times Union which you can read here.Jeff Spain, a Democratic Committee member in ED 3 has the services of two GOP connected lawyers who are appealing his defeat in Rensselaer City Court in which a judge found he had improperly donated away the party treasury after he lost control of the Democratic Committee he briefly chaired. He has been ordered to reimburse the party more than $3,000 which he has refused to do. Once the party attempted to collect the judgment through a garnishment procedure, he called on his Republican connections to appeal the decision.

Who's paying for the appeal and the lawyers you ask? Why we don't know and Spain isn't telling? But it's clear the appeal will in the end cost more than the judgment. Just the transcript of the trial alone could exceed $1,000 and is required for any appeal. The silver lining for the Democratic Committee is the fact that all of the costs the Committee incurs trying to collect the judgment will be added to the judgment itself. The cost of loosing the appeal will therefore mean a much larger payment from Spain than the judgment itself.

Something most people would think about before taking such a step.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post

Pat Nolan said...

"...this sign tells part of the story."

The other part of the story is the lack of real leadership within the North Greenbush Democratic Committee. Because of their ineptitude they continue to drive a wedge deeper and deeper into the party.

Anonymous said...

How is the party leadership inept Mr. Nolan? How is it you do not fault the the registered democrats who so openly have become tools of the Republicans, most likely because they depend on the Republicans for their jobs.
Would the Democratic leaders be less inept if they, like you, threw in the towel and turned the party and its independence over to the Republicans?

Anonymous said...

Maybe the Democratic leaders should do what Mr. Spain did to solve the division in the party. Put party members on trial who disagree with him and illegally vote to "remove" them from elected committee posts?
What say you Mr. Nolan? Do you support the witch trial method of handling political dissent in the democratic committee as Jeffery Spain did when he was the party chair?

Pat Nolan said...

That appears to be your current method. Prove me wrong. You have run every real Democrat out of the party and have a bunch of people that were in other parties that agree that your methods are considered acceptable. I and many others find your methods unethical and disgusting.

Pat Nolan said...

If I have to point out your utter failures at the polls for as long as I've known you then you really are out of touch with reality and would have no clue what I mean by inept. I thought about how I might try to explain it to you and figured that possibly Dictionary.com might be able to help so here goes:

inept

–adjective
1. without skill or aptitude for a particular task or assignment; maladroit: He is inept at mechanical tasks. She is inept at dealing with people.
2. generally awkward or clumsy; haplessly incompetent.
3. inappropriate; unsuitable; out of place.
4. absurd or foolish: an inept remark.

Now as I thought about this a little more I wondered how this might apply directly to the lack of leadership within the committee and how this could be measured. Since you haven't provided any mission statement, priorities or goals in all the time you have been destroying the party I started to rethink my description. Maybe ineptitude is not right. Maybe incompetent is a better place to start. I'll let you look that one up.

The North Greenbush Pipeline said...

There is just nothing as sad as person proving their ignorance by putting it in writing.
Aside from your display of arrogance in citing dictionary definitions of commonly understood language,you have no substantive examples to back your deliberate misconceptions.
We do not excuse you Mr. Nolan as ignorant, you know the truth and you have chosen to ignore and twist it to suit your personal agenda and vendettas.
You state the Democratic Committee had no "mission statement" yet you obviously know the committee approved a platform which was and is still on the website they maintain.
It contains the priorities and goals of the party which included things like a Comprehensive Plan. But you know that Mr. Nolan, you just deceive because you find the truth inconvenient.
It is truly amazing that you can sit at your keyboard and blame the democrats who support members of their own party while you and others registered in the party openly support Republicans.
Is it ineptitude, incompetence or just plain absurd to blame loyal Democrats for the disloyal actions of others who use their Democratic Party enrollment to further the Republican Party?
What a good feeling you must of had at a Democratic caucus after voting for a Republican instead of a Democrat and then blame the Democrats for the loss you and your band of Republicrats created all by yourselves.
Keep writing Mr. Nolan. Keep proving that your not ignorant of the truth, just unwilling to accept it.