Rhetoric and recrimination were on full display last week as the Democratic and Republican party committees in Ulster County held conventions to endorse candidates for state primaries scheduled for June 25.
The Democratic convention on the video conferencing platform Zoom was not available for public attendance. With 208 voting members to corral, committee chair Kelleigh McKenzie kept all speeches short, even cutting off the acceptance speech of incumbent congressmember Pat Ryan.
A hiccup in assigning weights to the votes of various committee members caused convention-night drama. A vote had to be retaken, but the outcome was the same.
The Republican committee convention was held in the Wallkill town hall. The public could just wander in off the street if they wished to attend, and acceptance speeches went on at length.
Democrats endorsed incumbents Pat Ryan, Michelle Hinchey, Sarahana Shrestha and Jonathan Jacobson, Josh Riley was endorsed to again challenge Republican congressman Marc Molinaro. Michele Frazier was endorsed to challenge Republican Peter Oberacker.
Republicans endorsed incumbents Molinaro, Brian Maher and Oberacker.
Patrick Sheehan, who just a week before the convention abandoned his Assembly race against Shrestha, was endorsed to take on state senator Hinchey instead. Ulster County Conservative Party chair Jack Hayes was endorsed to challenge Shrestha.
Ex-NYPD police officer Allison Esposito, who ran for lieutenant governor on Lee Zeldin’s ticket in 2022, was endorsed to challenge Pat Ryan.
No Republican purity pledge
The Republican convention endorsements provided little drama. Lengthier speeches provided rhetorical flourishes, and emotional appeals abounded in spades.
Sheehan called Hinchey “crime-positive,” identified Shrestha and Ryan as “moderate Marxists,” and fingered governor Kathy Hochul as a “a tyrant.”
While Jack Hayes couldn’t “stand having a communist as my assemblyperson,” Sheehan gave her credit for wearing her socialist Marxist philosophy on her sleeve. “Actually, she wears it right here on her lapel, her red rose,” said Sheehan.
Sheehan himself wore a green, vaguely military-style jacket with epaulettes at his shoulders and an IDF, yellow star-of-David patch embroidered over his heart.
The Democrats were accused by the Republicans of passing policy to keep people in poverty. They were the inmates who had taken over the asylum. Republicans would restore common sense across the land.
The Republicans of Ulster County were very loose in describing their own platform. As committee chair Ken Ronk said, “There’s no purity pledge to join the Ulster County Republicans.”
Elections commissioner John Quigley noted that the party would be endeavoring to compile an agreed-upon list of the things they stood for in the coming year to combat the characterizations made by the Democrats telling them what they stood for.
Their website listed public safety, the economy and family values as their primary concerns, Plans were also shared to repeal background checks on ammunition, to enshrine EMTs as essential workers, to close the borders, to loosen environmental regulations, to lower taxes, and to make paid family leave a reality.
Democrats endorse Shrestha
The Democratic convention paid less attention to its ideological opponents. Greater focus was placed on the struggle between the progressive and other-than-progressive factions of the party.
The most divisive issue currently debated among the local Democrats has been whether to call for a ceasefire in Israeli’s military invasion of the Gaza strip and whether calling for one makes one anti- or pro-Israel.
A letter addressed to Pat Ryan and other state-level politicians signed by 35 committee members [now 39] calling for a ceasefire was introduced into the agenda of the convention for consideration. After wonky procedural discussion regarding whether to officially share it with the entire committee, it was in the end referred to the executive committee for its consideration at a later date.
Another hiccup in the unity of the evening was when Rosendale committee chair Daniel Scherer raised the concept that the committee, having met solely to endorse candidates ahead of the election, should consider withholding its official endorsement of either incumbent assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha or challenger Gabbi Madden.
“This is a contested election,” noted Scherer. “Both candidates have told us that they’re going to proceed to a primary, regardless of the endorsements. So there’s going to be a primary, anyway.”
Committee member Erin Moran agreed with Scherer. “I think the idea of letting the voters decide is a fresh perspective.”
The motion once introduced was defeated, 113 to 49. Over two-thirds of committee members attending the convention had voted to endorse Shrestha.
When Pat Ryan spoke, he addressed the letter calling for a ceasefire.
“It’s important for the group to hear,” said Ryan. “From what I’ve reviewed of that letter unless the draft has changed, I agree with that letter. I support that letter. And I just want everybody to know that because I know this is on a lot of people’s minds.”
Because the Republican convention was four days later, Sheehan was able to address Ryan’s announcement.
“Pat Ryan is calling for a ceasefire,” said Sheehan, “because he’s got lunatics in front of his office and at every event calling for a ceasefire. It all starts local when you got lunatics marching down the streets of Kingston and Rhinebeck that nobody wants.”
Winning in the coffee shops
Compared to the relatively sedate, politically unobjectionable bromides offered by most of the Democrats, the Republican oratory shined like a fireworks show.
Sheehan was creative, with lines like “Going green is going to take all the green out of our pockets.” But Esposito’s lines packed the biggest emotional punch, no matter the subject.
On education, she said: “They’re teaching our children to hate each other. They’re teaching our children to hate the greatest country in the history of the world.”
On switching over to renewable energy: “Make no mistake, this attack on energy is just emboldening our adversaries. Instead of cleanly harvesting energy from this country, we’re sending billions overseas to people that want to destroy us.”
On the border: “Close the border, find out who’s here illegally. Get rid of who we need to get rid of and get back to securing our southern border and our northern border. It’s national security, folks. A country without borders cannot exist.”
And on war and peace: “The farther we get from September 11, the closer we get to September 10.”
Her aggressive tone mixed with emotional appeals rang familiar. When Republican leaders in Ulster County are given credit for the policies of their national party, however, they go to great pains to distance themselves, emphasizing that they are a local party more concerned with the day-to-day operations of municipal government.
Assemblymember Brian Maher gave his party advice.
“We need all of you to have conversations with those that could potentially vote for us. This is where we’re going to win in each community in the coffee shops,” said the first-term assemblymember. “And in those conversations to have that compassion, to admit, hey, you know, these are human beings, too … We might win this election cycle on fear and on anger, but we’re going to lose the next one. And this cycle is going to continue.”
Over on a table next to the Republican candidate endorsement forms, though, two varieties of red and white bumper stickers featured an elephant’s head superimposed over an American flag and the Ulster County Republican Committee name.
The motto on the first sticker was America First, the motto spelled out on the second was M.A.G.A.
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