John Haggerty

Councilman Dennis Gallagher, who was indicted for rape earlier this year, came in last place in a race to become a Republican judicial delegate in the Queens district he’s represented since 2001.

 

The unofficial results for the three positions there, according to the city Board of Elections, are:

John Haggerty-320

Marguerite Adams-319

Matt Hunter-258

Bart Bruno-235

Richard Metzger-290

Dennis Gallagher-207

It’s little bit of a blow for organization Republicans, some of whom hoped Gallagher could run to keep the state Senate seat there in Republicans hands. And the top voter-getter in this obscure race was John Haggerty, who, along with his brother, Bart, have been waging a years-long war against county leaders Phil Ragusa and his predecessor, Serph Maltese.

(I’m still waiting to get results on Gallagher’s re-election bid for his County Committee position).

While Ragusa won his race for State County Committee (which functions the same as being a district leader in other counties), another Maltese ally was knocked off the ballot and another is trailing by 28 votes.

Marguerite Adams – executive vice president of the Queens GOP and a senior member of the state committee – is trailing in her State County Committee race to Haggerty ally Virginia Donnelly by 28 votes, according to Bart Haggerty.

Another Maltese ally, Karyn Peterson, was knocked off the ballot and replaced by Janice Bar, Haggerty said.

You know things have gotten weird in a small local primary when Republicans start putting images of Charlie Rangel on their literature.

This piece, which I heard is circulating in Queens, is linking the Queens County Republican Chairman, Phil Ragusa, to Rangel, who thinks Dick Cheney has mental problems.

The mail piece references a 2002 donation of $1000 that Ragusa made to Rangel’s committee and notes that Rangel help engineer the Democratic takeover of congress in last year’s election.

Ragusa, a CPA, is running this year for a male-designated state Republican committee post in the 26th Assembly District. The only other candidate for that slot is Peter Boudouvas, an aide to Republican state Senator Frank Padavan.

The mail may not derail’s Ragusa’s election to that position tomorrow, but it’s certain to fuel the seemingly endless fight for control of the Queens G.O.P. county organization, which has been going on for years and involves technical election law stuff I don't entirely understand. (Critics like John and Bart Haggerty--with the help of Democratic election lawyer Martin Connor--say the way the county counts votes is screwy.)

Credit for kicking off this latest skirmish goes to former congressional candidate-turned-blogger Jun Policarpio, who wrote about the Rangel donation about a week ago.  read more »

Here's the formal announcement that the new state GOP executive director is Allison Coccia, the former political director of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. (She's third from the left in a picture from this website.)

The other person up for the job was John Haggerty, an experienced Republican operative who has worked with Mike Bloomberg, George Pataki and Jeanine Pirro.

Haggerty, along with his brother Bart, has waged a war against Queens GOP leader Serph Maltese with jihad-like intensity. So maybe it was just too much of a stretch for a state leader to hire someone intent on ousting an established county leader.

But new party chair Joe Mondello hinted at another possible reason in a statement announcing the hiring of Coccia in which he said he was happy to have someone "who isn't necessarily wedded to the way things have been done in the past."

Party spokesman Tony Santino told me that the line was not, repeat, not a reference to George Pataki or anyone else in the current party establishment, but "simply a recognition that we had some tough times in the Republican Party in New York State and the chairman is looking to do some new and innovative things."

-- Azi Paybarah

John Haggerty may have competition for the job of state GOP executive director.

The Brennan Center's blog says Albany needs elections that matter, not just term limits.

Eliot Spitzer's nominee to head the Port Authority wants to take a fresh look at Ground Zero and the Freedom Tower.

Alan Hevesi passed up the chance to speak to the Albany grand jury, with his lawyer continuing to say that he did nothing wrong.

Christine Quinn's 421-a plan could cost Bruce Ratner millions.

Political Wire says Barack Obama sounds like he's running.

Kos thinks Joe Liberman's call for more troops in Iraq contradicts what the senator said during the campaign.

Lou Dobbs, the new Ross Perot?

And above is an ad for civil unions.

-- Azi Paybarah

The Politicker's intern cut out of the Queens GOP's organizational meeting in Ridgewood last night around 11:00 p.m., complaining of the "longest roll-call ever," but another correspondent stuck it out as County Leader Serf Maltese battled to suppress a Bloomberg-funded insurgency in which Mike aide John Haggerty tried to replace Serf with John's brother, Bart. (This has to be The Politicker's favorite sideline skirmish in this Mayoral contest.)

The first real action in the long-anticipated fight came, we're told, around 1:00 a.m., when Maltese disqualified nearly 300 of Bart's proxy votes from absent county committee members. Chants of "Why? Serf, Why?" apparently ensued from quarters dissatisfied with his explanations for why he was striking signatures, including John Haggarty's own.

Bart lost the vote around 2:45 a.m., and all parties went home to rest up...for court.  read more »

The Politicker simply doesn't understand why John Haggerty, Bloomberg's Republican field operative hasn't been paid. The Ognibene folks see sinister motives, but other GOP insiders aren't sure what's to be gained.

But here's another perplexing item: Back in January, campaign manager Kevin Sheekey leaked the hiring of three political operatives to the Times. They included two Democrats, Stu Loeser and Patrick Brennan, and a Republican, Kevin Fullington. Fullington is a former aide to City Council GOP leader Jimmy Oddo who now works in the Mayor's Office of Legislative Affairs.  read more »

Six months later, the two Democrats are on Mike's campaign payroll, but Fullington's name still hasn't shown up on a campaign filing. And I saw him at City Hall earlier today.

So what's the deal? The Democrats over there just can't bring themselves to sign those GOP paychecks?

The Politicker just spoke to the Queens County Republican Party chairman, who described his mental state as "amazed outrage and indignation."

The trigger for this fit is a challenge, filed by Bloomberg aide John Haggerty, against one Philip Sica, a minister and the sole, longshot Republican candidate for Borough President.  read more »

"In forty years of politics I never heard of a party candidate challenging his own party's candidate where he has no alternative or opposition candidate in the race," Maltese said. "Now we are left to our own devices to figure out why Mayor Bloomberg does not want the alleged party of his choice to have a candidate on the ticket for Borough President."

Another Republican reminds The Politicker, however, that Haggerty is a past master of election-law trench warfare: He was the force behind State Senator Nick Spano's successful challenge to just enough Democratic voters to keep the Westchester Republican in office last year.

Looking over a handy list of candidates for all New York City offices (here in .pdf form, link now working), it's become clear that the hardest-fought politics this year is going to play out at the bottom of the political food chain in Queens.

There, Bloomberg aide John Haggerty has filed rare challenges to nearly 120 members of the Republican County Committee in about 60 districts; those challenged include Tom Ognibene and his wife, Margaret. These mini-races will be fought out between now and September, though one Haggerty ally said they aim to disqualify the petitions of some rivals in the meantime.

This is, in part, the latest in a complex and age-old (think: Balkans) three-way Queens Republican squabble. But it's also prelude to a coup against County Leader Serph Maltese, who is elected by the county committee. And it's a rare and refreshing instance of Mike Bloomberg engaging in an extremely traditional local political sport: revenge.

One other Queens note: When The Politicker reported yesterday that Leroy Comrie of Southeast Queens would appear on both Republican and Democratic lines, I understated the feat Comrie had pulled off. This November, he will be the candidate of no fewer than four political parties, Democrat, Republican, Working Families, and Independence. His name will appear on the ballot four times, and his will be the only name for his race.  read more »

Southeast Queens, meet Primorsk circa 1973.

It appears that Mike, having lost the Queens Republican Party's endorsement to Tom Ognibene, is mounting a coup attempt in the borough.

The people carrying Bloomberg's petitions are also petitioning for an alternate slate of county committee members led, we guess, by John Haggerty, the Queens GOP maverick on Mike's staff.  read more »

This appears to be a bold attempt to unseat the county leader, Serph Maltese, whom these new committee members would presumably vote out. But our Queens sources warn that the move could generate more interest and higher turnout in the Republican primary than the mayor might actually wish.

We wrote a little this week about the complicated relationship between Mike and his predecessor, then heard a snippet of it at the Forest Park Republican Club in Queens last night.

You do have to be as thoroughbred a Republican as Bloomberg aide John Haggerty to say something like this:

"He's done more in four years for the Republican Party than Rudy did in eight," Haggerty said of his boss.

This has the virtue of being true. Rudy left no local party to speak of behind. Mike hasn't done much party building either, but at least he's donated vast sums of money to various GOP organizations.  read more »

Bloomberg killed in Forest Park, by the way. At the end, one guy thanked him for making him quit smoking, and another told him of the Democrats, "None of those schmucks can touch you."

It took a while, but the Bloomberg campaign has steeled itself to bringing an actual Republican political operative into Mike's midtown headquarters.

There have been press reports since January of the Mayor's campaign hiring Republican staff. But don't believe the hype. One of those Republicans, Kevin Fullington, is still in his job in the Mayor's Office of Legislative Affairs. The other, former Pataki aide John Haggerty, didn't show up on Mike's most recent campaign finance filing, but we're told he finally started with the Mayor this month and has even been dragged along to a Democratic club or two.  read more »

Anyway, he's working hard. A Queens spy provides this evidence that Mike will be showing up at Haggerty's political home base tomorrow night.