Meet the new boss

From the Forum:

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Turner will be named the next chairman of the Queens County Republican Party, according to a published report and several sources.

Turner, a retired television executive and Rockaway resident who won the 2011 special election for the 9th Congressional District seat following Anthony Weiner’s resignation amid his initial sexting scandal, will formally be awarded the post by state Republican chief Ed Cox at a meeting of the QGOP executive committee this Thursday evening in Forest Hills, according to Bart Haggerty, a state GOP committeeman and district leader.

“The war is over,” Haggerty told The Forum on Monday. “This puts an end to the dispute once and for all.”

Queens GOP version of Hatfield-McCoy feud

From City Hall:

The Queens Republican Party paid for a mailer suggesting the brother of indicted campaign operative John Haggerty was involved in a scheme to steal $1 million from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bart Haggerty is facing a Republican district leader primary challenge in the 28th Assembly District from Patrick Gallagher, the son of former Council Member Dennis Gallagher, who has the backing of the Queens Republican leadership.

The party paid for the negative mailer – which suggests Bart Haggerty was involved in his brother’s alleged scheme - that recently landed in mailboxes in Forest Hills, Queens.

The Haggerty brothers have long sought to overthrow Ragusa and are actively supporting Ognibene, while Dennis Gallagher is a Ragusa ally. Gallagher himself resigned from office in disgrace in 2008 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor sex abuse charges.

Ognibene said going after Bart Haggerty was completely out of bounds.

“Bart Haggerty has never, ever been accused of anything improper in his life,” Ognibene said.

A spokesman for Ragusa declined to comment, saying the mailer speaks for itself.

Bloomberg’s money has been a centerpiece of the battle for control of the party. Ognibene says he is running against Ragusa in part because the current chair failed to secure enough money from Bloomberg when the mayor was seeking the Republican ballot line in 2009.

“It is not our job to extort money from people,” Ragusa replied.

There's a pathetic bunch of hacks in the GOP. In the Democratic party, too, but the GOP wins the prize. Is this the best they can come up with?

And the winner of the chairmanship is..

From the NY Post:

Who's the Republican king of Queens?

Longtime GOP county Chairman Philip Ragusa and his perpetual challenger, Bart Haggerty, both claim the office.

Haggerty, who worked on Mayor Bloomberg's re-election campaign last summer, filed papers with the Board of Elections saying he was voted chairman of the Queens County GOP on Oct. 3 at a Flushing reception hall.

That's the same date and location that Ragusa says he was re-elected.

"I opened the meeting as the sitting chair, and after all the votes were cast and counted, I was declared chairman of the executive committee and chairman of Queens County," Ragusa said.

But Haggerty insists he won -- and alleges that Ragusa's team used a faulty counting system.

"I believe I was elected, and I am operating as chair," Haggerty told The Post.

The Queens GOP relies on a weighted vote system that doesn't comply with state law, Haggerty said. But Haggerty once tried to litigate that point and his case was dismissed, said a lawyer for the Queens Republicans.

The joke's on the GOP, part 2

From Urban Elephants:

The facts are in! "Independent" NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is directly funding the challenge of the Queens County Republican Party.

It seems his goal is retaliation for Chairman Phil Ragusa's principled stance against the tax-and-spend liberal earlier in the year, when Mr. Ragusa refused to just rubber-stamp Bloomberg getting the Republican line in November. Although the Queens County Organization finally endorsed the Mayor, it seems that Bloomberg, who has been known to hold personal grudges, wants payback for making him "beg" to be unanimously endorsed by all the five County Republican organizations.

The proof of the Mayor's involvement comes from a close evaluation of the nominating petitions filed on behalf of the challengers to the Queens GOP. I will describe just two sets of petitions, volumes QN0900680 and QN0900681, that were filed on behalf of a number of candidates - all of whom are working in opposition to the existing Queens County Republican organization...

QN0900680 is a volume of petitions for Bart Bruno for City Council in the 29th City Council district - one of the positions I am personally running for as the endorsed Republican candidate, at least if I don't get knocked off the ballot by the Haggerty's at tomorrow's Board of Elections hearing. This volume contains petition signatures ONLY for Mr. Bruno to run for City Council as a Republican, yet they were ALL witnessed by paid Bloomberg people.

Why would the billionaire Mayor be paying to get Mr. Bruno on the Ballot? I don't remember Mr. Bloomberg endorsing Mr. Bruno, like he did Tom Ognibene or Eric Ulrich.

QN0900681 is a volume of slate petitions for Bart Bruno for City Council with State Committee candidates, Nunziatto and Mugno, who are both running AGAINST the Queens County GOP's endorsed candidates for the State Committee Positions in the 30th A.D. Again, the uniformity of the names on these petitions is clear - the witnesses are all either part of the Mayor's Queens crew of petitioners or canvassers. Did the Mayor formally endorse any of these candidates? How can he say he's not "supporting" their candidacies against the Queens GOP establishment?

The Mayor's campaign operatives have denied that Bloomberg is DIRECTLY challenging the Queens County organization, but how can those statements hold up when it was his PAID petitioners and canvassers who got all these people on the ballot to RUN AGAINST the Queens GOP endorsed candidates? These facts make Bloomberg's goal clear: the liberal wants to take over the Queens GOP for his own purposes.

Bloomberg tries to hurt fellow GOP candidate

From the Daily News:

The Free and Equal Elections Foundation, a nonpartisan Chicago-based organization that advocates for ballot access reform, chastised Mayor Bloomberg's campaign for petition challenges filed by one of his GOP operatives, John Haggerty Jr.

The fairly new foundation, which includes Ballot Access News editor and publisher Richard Winger among its board members, released the following statement:

"...what about the candidates whose petitions are being challenged?
Will they be able to see their names on the ballot?
Not if Mayor Bloomberg has his way.""

The statement goes on to note that Haggerty, referred to as the mayor's "personal petitioning coordinator, challenged the petitions of a number of candidates, including Robert Hornak, the GOP Queens BP hopeful, and everyone seeking to run citywide on the Conservative Party line.

Hey, remember this? I guess the mayor's really a Marshall man.