Big Joe M's Legacies

[buchanan]

1. The Imperial Chairmanship. With his big $, chauffers, staff @ HQ, life insurance, and on and on..., he will leave in place an exhorbitantly expensive infrastructure that the next chairman should jettison, if he or she is for thecommittee and not for him or herself. As it is now, too much of the money raised by the faithful goes to pay for his perks. In all, close to $1mm a year.

2. A well developed Democratic opposition that did not exist when he took over that will live on and on and on long after he is gone.

[Freedomlver]

$1million a year to keep his corpulent ass in luxury, supported by the hardworking people who give $100-$150 a pop. . .? I hate to sound naive, but just reading it drives me nuts. Of his Committee members, I heard he said, "Let them eat cake"!

[JUANITA]

I HEARD HIM SAY EAT SOMETHING ELSE, NO???YES?????

[Evita]

He routinely says the committee structure can kiss his ass.

[Liddy]

Normally, I wouldn't stick my nose into your party's affairs, but it seems to me that there are an awful lot of "AOL" tough guys here.

On the board, all the reps seem to hate Joe M. and talk a lot of nonsense, but word in the real world is that he's not going anywhere. That's not to say he's loved by the rank and file, just that the rank and file don't have the stones to do anything about it.

And not for nothing, it's not the chairman of any party that wins or loses elections. It's the rank and file, so I think the reps who piss and moan on this board should be looking at themselves and not Mondello.

[Happy Rep]

You suggest the GOP may not like Big M, but that they don't do anything about him.

True as it pertains to intraparty affairs - the committeemen and women are latent in their ability to depose the Boss. Yet, they have been a force for change in the past few local contests.

A) They sat out the 1999 race when The Boss retained ran every single incumbent official despite vocal rank and file protests toward this strategy. Plus, he blamed all the County woes on Tom Gulotta, another action that flew in the face of rank and file opinion. Thus the Committee structure did nothing to help his handpicked candidates and guess what.

B) Committee financial reciepts have declined by 50% since The Bossman's heyday in 1996. A precipitous decline in revenue not offset by a commensurate decline in fixed spending. Additionally expending $500,000 to keep a few judges on the bench (and not even winning every race, just holding their own) was a misplaced allocation of funds going into 2003's local races.

The committeemen and women may not be able to dump Joe in the organization. But they are voicing themselves.

[unhappy rep]

talking to some of my fellows, i think we may lose 1 - 2 seats in november (not a supermajority for the dems, but close) depending on the redistricting thing. i don't hold much stock in corbin's supposed defection. we lose assessor too.

we're going to wish it were november 2002 again.

i hope i'm wrong.