Queens GOP

The details of that bizarre Queens skirmish are still trickling out, like this one:

At some point during the long night, Queens GOP leader Serf Maltese, grudgingly, endorsed Mayor Mike.

Serf, The Politicker hears, thought he had a deal: He'd endorse, and Mike would stop throwing his weight behind Serf's rivals.

So Serf's allies were surprised to learn that, the night Maltese announced his endorsement, Bloomberg City Hall aide Shea Fink was calling Queens Republicans to rally them against Serf.

All you want to know about the evening can be found in this depressed Republican's account, or almost all.

One final item of note is that Serf's lawyer, a smart GOP election-law guy named Perry Reich, played the behind-the-scenes role of parliamentarian -- despite his recent conviction for forging the signature of a federal judge.  read more »

And you thought Brooklyn was interesting!

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 »

In case you're looking for details on the Queens GOP civil war, or the other messy local contests around the city, here (another .pdf) is the list of objections filed against candidacies around the city, most of them relating to county committee petitions in Queens. And it looks like Bloomberg's lawyers will be collecting some fees as well, as he's forced to defend his Independence Party backing on the legal front.  read more »

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.