In response to this site’s query about why multiple sources have predicted that he may be on the way out as Columbia County Republican Committee chair, as well as for general comment about the current state of the County GOP, Greg Fingar provided the following statement this evening. It is reproduced in full below:
Well I guess in some sense we're all “on the way out.” Aren’t we? I don't expect, nor desire to be the head of the ccgop forever.
The Roy v Kathy primary was inevitable. Both candidates confirmed that with me. My strategy was to let the republican voters decide who they wanted to defeat the democratic challenger in the NYS senate race while maintaining our focus on the races where we had unanimous committee support. I was concerned that a divided committee, may cause us to take our eye off the ball.
For the most part the strategy worked. We successfully elected, Chris Gibson, Pete Lopez, Steve McLaughlin and Kathy Marchione. We were not successful in the assembly race Byrne v Barrett, however Byrne did prevail in my home town of CLERMONT.
Now while your sources may tell a completely different story, I have received nothing but praise for the handling of the McDonald v Marchione situation, and lets not forget, we ultimately did win that race. And I have to say, praise came from the most extreme tea-party members to moderate republicans.
As respects the GOP chairmanship, the committee reorganizes in Sept or Oct of ODD years. I will be up for re-election next year. My focus, at the moment is; 18 supervisor races, a County Judge, Sheriff and Coroner as well as countless town wide races.I am anticipating an extremely active political season in 2013. In addition to the 4 regularly scheduled GOP events we are discussing many town wide opportunities for our candidates to meet residents and voters.
GREGORY C. FINGAR
NOTE: An open-ended suggestion to sit down for a more in-depth interview to discuss these and other matters has been made to Fingar.
