When it comes to the Brooklyn Republican Party, Yogi Berra’s famous malapropism needs an extender, ‘It ain’t over till it’s over, and even then it ain’t over’.
That after rumors are swirling that forces loyal to Bay Ridge Sen. Marty Golden is planning to take last week’s election of former Assembly Member Arnaldo Ferraro as the new Kings County Republican Chair to court in order to install, Golden’s favored candidate, attorney Ted Ghorra.
Golden tabbed Ghorra to run against his onetime good friend, former GOP Chair Craig Eaton, but who has been his arch political enemy for the past few years after the two had a falling out. He also supported Ferraro as vice chair.
At issue is the number of county committee proxies that the Golden camp brought to the organizational meeting that the GOP credential committee threw out as invalid.
Golden came to the meeting armed with 438 proxies, but only 17 were accepted and 421 were tossed out. In contrast, Eaton submitted 201 proxies with 172 accepted and 29 rejected; and 46th Assembly District GOP candidate Lucretia Regina-Potter submitted 123 proxies with 117 accepted and six thrown out.
After much reported shouting and cursing, Eaton dropped a bombshell that he had enough of running the party after eight years and that he supported Ferraro for the chair. Between his proxies and Regina-Potter’s proxies, and with Golden’s proxies not counted, they had enough votes to hand the chair to Ferraro.
But the decision left not only Golden, but many district leaders throughout Brooklyn that support Golden and worked hard to get the proxies extremely angry.
“The actions of the credentials committee who threw out 421 Proxies of the 438 County Committee that were submitted by Senator Golden are shameful and reeks of a old soviet style election. We the County Committee Members of the Kings County Republican Party demand that the Credentials committee release a report stating their reasons why they snuffed out over 90% of those proxies,” wrote Kensington District Leader Glenn Nocera in an email to KCP.
Meanwhile, Ferraro issued a statement calling for peace between the Golden and Eaton factions.
“My main goal as Chairman is to unite the Republican Party in Brooklyn, so we can focus on the #1 responsibility of any political organization: electing qualified men and women to public office. Any disputes or disagreements Senator Marty Golden may have had with our previous Chairman, Craig Eaton, are in the past. It is time to wipe the slate clean,” he said in the statement.
“If rumors of Senator Golden’s commencement of a lawsuit to overturn my election are true, I am deeply saddened. Senator Golden thought enough of me and my experience to nominate me for Vice Chairman of the Brooklyn Republicans last week. I was — and am still — eager to work with him to build our Republican Party,” Ferraro added.
Golden did not return calls at post time.
