Six days after publication here of a story about a widely-rumored shake-up in the County Republican Committee, GOP chair Greg Fingar has issued an irate denial.
In a Monday morning email, Fingar chastised Ancram Supervisor Art Bassin (and by extension this site) for “circulating absolute BS,” claiming that “it certainly isn’t productive or true for that matter.”
Fingar further characterizes the multiply-sourced reports as “an outright lie” and an attempt to “stir controversy within the community.” As noted in very the first paragraph of the original story, this site’s sources were “three separate (and ideologically-distinct) sources.”
Journalists protect such sources. But without furthering a Republican witch hunt, it can be also disclosed that these three sources are themselves credible political figures, not closely allied with each other, and had no obvious motivation to either support or oppose an insurrection against Fingar. The piece moreover was reported as a possibility not a certainty, noting that Fingar remains in the position and his tenure is not necessarily at an end yet.
Meanwhile, recent election cycles have borne witness to obvious fissures and infighting among the County GOP.
For example in 2011, a barely-concealed struggle resulted in then-judge Paul Czajka seeking the District Attorney’s seat held at the time by Beth Cozzolino. Cozzolino then sought the judicial position held by Czajka, facing down a September primary for the Republican line from Mark Portin before ultimately losing in November to Democrat Richard Koweek.
Similarly, 2012 saw a slew of tightly-contested GOP primaries for key State-level positions, for example from insurgent candidates Neil DiCarlo and Kathy Marchione against Steve Saland and Roy McDonald, respectively, after the latter two supported gay marriage.
This site is more than willing to report Fingar’s denial, while continuing to have no reason believe that any of its sources were deliberately “lying.” It’s possible that each was independently mistaken. Other scenarios are that a change in favor of Benson was sent up as a political trial balloon and reached disparate parties—or just that it took six days for an incipient insurrection to be squelched.
