By Dee Richard
Another busy week, but nothing spectacular — just regular Queens local stuff.
Feb. 13 was a luncheon at Forno’s Italia Ristorante in Astoria with four men and myself in order to discuss an upcoming charity event involving the New York Rangers. One of the honorees will be Queens’ own former state Sen. Frank Padavan. It sounds like fun and we will keep you posted. While there, attorney Kimon Thermos and a friend also dropped in to have lunch as well. Incidentally, Forno’s food is pretty good.
Feb. 15 was the first meeting of the Northeast Queens Republican Club under the leadership of the club’s new president, John Watch. John did an excellent job. The place was standing room-only and there were many new members, including some who were younger than the usual membership, and that is what every club or organization needs: new blood and fresh faces!
The guest speaker was an interesting young woman by the name of Lynn Krogh, a political strategist with the Casale Group, who has had many years working on various political campaigns.
Her subject at the meeting was on the new proposed lines from redistricting. How it will all work out is anyone’s guess, but you do not have many happy campers on board. Will the governor veto it? Will it then have to go to court?
As they have moved the primary race dates up much earlier than in the past, that doesn’t seem to leave much time for all the processes involved. All we can do is wait and see. The meeting went on much longer than usual. Padavan had to leave for another event, which made him miss the usual photo-op at the end. It was a good, lively and interesting meeting. Everyone is looking for more of the same in the future.
Last Thursday night, Darryl Strawberry’s Sports Bar and Restaurant in Douglaston hosted an open house. Darryl was unable to be there, but his brother Michael was and he made a great host. While there, we ran into old friend Russ Tagrove, the karaoke DJ at King Yum’s.
Russ told us that he will now be doing the same DJ karaoke show at Strawberry’s Tuesday nights. Another old friend we ran into was Thomas De Martino, manager of the Douglaston Manor. It was an enjoyable evening.
Later last Thursday evening, it was off to the Queens Conservative Party’s February meeting. It was the first one the group had since its December Christmas party. The guest speaker scheduled was attorney Wendy Long — no relation to the Long brothers, Tom and Mike.
She canceled out for a pre-scheduled trip to Disney World with her children. But from what Tom Long said, she will be rescheduled to speak at the March meeting. Wendy plans to run against George Maragos for the U.S. Senate seat of Kirsten Gillibrand. There had also been another declared candidate, Marc Cenedella. His claim to fame was that he was prepared to spend $25 million of his own money, but for whatever reason he decided to drop out of the race altogether.
The political lesson to be learned here is that no matter what party you belong to, you must all get together behind your candidate and push him or her on to victory. As long as you are fractured and each group wants to support its choice only, no one can win.
The Democrats proved that in the race for Ann-Margret Carrozza’s state Assembly seat. There were so many candidates wanting to run for her seat they realized it was a no-win situation. They consolidated their efforts and put their own political ambitions aside and unified behind one candidate, Ed Braunstein.
Guess what? It worked and he won and has been doing an excellent job.
If the GOP/Conservative candidates running for president want one of their own to have a shot at beating Barack Obama, it would seem they would get together, convince the spoilers to drop out and support one person. The way it is going now, eviscerating each other serves no useful purpose other than ensuring Obama’s re-election.
That’s it for this week.
I look forward to your voice mails at 718-767-6484, faxes at 718-746-0066 and e-mails at deerrichard@aol.com.
Don’t forget to check out the Focus on Queens page.
Till next week, Dee.
